Cities4Children Blog

This is our platform for sharing insights, ideas for actions, conversations and innovations that make cities better for children and young people.

Child-friendly street transformations improve neighbourhood quality of life

Road Safety

Children experience street infrastructure uniquely. However, how we design streets doesn’t always consider children’s needs. This blog spotlights two successful street interventions in Fortaleza, Brazil and Santiago, Chile, which made streets more safe, active and sociable, benefitting children and adults. The Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) Streets for Kids team is a group of urban Read more →

Revisiting Streets for Life #Love30

Road Safety

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for children and young people aged 5 to 29 years. The Streets for Life and #Love30 campaign was the focus of the 6th UN Global Road Safety Week (UNGRSW). As we approach the 7th UNGRSW, here’s another look at Read more →

Child health on a warming planet

Child Health

We have an understandable tendency to put things, people, and issues into boxes. One example of this has been how we’ve historically talked about environmental health separately from child health. For example, separating environmental health departments from those looking at maternal and child health (including at the World Health Organization, no less). But on a Read more →

Putting local communities at the center of public space making in informal settlements

Public Space

The Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) collaborates with local community groups to transform underutilized risk-prone spaces in Kibera into a resilient and productive network of public spaces. This network of public spaces – comprising toilets, multipurpose halls, micro-enterprises, laundry facilities, play spaces, vegetable gardens, and schools – builds physical, social and economic resilience in informal communities Read more →

Ask an Expert: Cecilia Vaca Jones – “If you could see the city from 95cm – the height of a healthy three-year-old child – what would you change?”

Cecilia Vaca Jones Urban95 blog Inclusive Urban Planning

In our latest Ask an Expert Series blog, we speak with Cecilia Vaca Jones. Cecilia has over 20 years of experience leading public and private-sector organisations to promote and enable child-responsive policies and programmes at national and global levels. In this interview, Cecilia shares her insights on leading the Bernard van Leer Foundation from 2019 Read more →

“The future I want for my child”: how climate action can transform children’s health in cities

Climate

Parents in Nairobi tell their stories about how climate change and air pollution are affecting the health of their children – and share their vision for a healthier, cleaner future. Children are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change, including the effects of heat and air pollution. African cities, including Nairobi, are facing Read more →

Ask an Expert Omnia El Omrani – “We want to amplify youth-led climate solutions so youth can attract strategic partners to scale up their work.”

Ask an expert Omnia youth cop27 climate change Climate

In the lead up to this year’s 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt, we spoke with Omnia El Omrani, the official Youth Envoy for COP27. Youth across the world play a tremendous role in energising and elevating the climate movement. Here, Omnia explains her role as Youth Envoy and how children and youth Read more →

Ask an Expert: David Satterthwaite – “I’d invite politicians and aid agency staff to walk with SDI affiliates through slums”

Informal Settlements

In the latest from our Ask an Expert series, we sit down with David Satterthwaite to hear more about his vast years of experience in the urban and environment space. David’s impressive research and writing has been cited more than 32,000 times.   We would love to hear about your journey into urban planning and poverty Read more →