Urban Hub Team at Save the Children International, March 18, 2025, 8 min
Mapping with children is a powerful tool to understand their perspectives on their neighbourhoods, identify safety concerns, and highlight opportunities for improvement. This blog explores five innovative ways to map neighbourhoods with children, from creating child-friendly city maps to using drones for waste management and even mapping imaginary cities. What is mapping? Mapping tells a Read more â
Sree Kumar Kumaraswamy, Madhura Kulkarni and Chaitali Patil, July 9, 2024, 9 min
This blog describes how the innovative Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge (NNC) is promoting healthy early childhood development across 10 cities in India. It outlines seven key urban governance strategies for working with city governments that can strengthen the planning and management of cities to create inclusive and child-friendly spaces for young children and their caregivers. With Read more â
Yichen Wang, June 3, 2024, 6 min
It’s World Bicycle Day and time to celebrate pedal power! BYCS is expanding its Bicycle Mayor Network to foster more cycling-friendly cities worldwide. In this blog, Yichen Wang describes inspiring initiatives led by Bicycle Mayors worldwide, promoting cycling and inclusive public spaces. Why cycling? Cycling is one of the most inclusive, sustainable, and affordable modes Read more â
Urban Hub Team at Save the Children International, April 9, 2024, 7 min
The third blog in our ‘Public Space for Children’ series provides an overview of UN-Habitatâs ongoing 12-year Global Public Space Programme (GPSP) with a focus on interventions, tools and guidance that make public spaces better for children. In case you missed them, the first blog of the series spotlights public space interventions by our member Read more â
Tim Gill, February 20, 2024, 9 min
With growing worldwide interest in making cities more child-friendly, what approaches can municipalities take? Tim Gill sets out three models for local governments and explores the pros and cons of each. Child-friendly urban planning and design means taking childrenâs needs and wishes seriously when building or changing neighbourhoods, especially their public realm. Drawing on ideas Read more â
Urban Hub Team at Save the Children International, January 24, 2024, 6 min
Are you an activist, built-environment practitioner, caregiver, or city official, who wants to improve your city or neighbourhood for children? Itâs a new year – how about starting it off by doing a course on making cities safer, cleaner and greener for children. In this article we feature three online open access courses that introduce Read more â
Urban Hub Team at Save the Children International, December 4, 2023, 8 min
Public spaces are crucial for childrenâs holistic development and wellbeing. Our new blog series showcases how public spaces can be made better for children. Using global examples from Cities4Children members and other initiatives, our aim is to spotlight ideas for action, innovation, programmes, policies and practice that make public spaces child friendly. Why are public Read more â
Cecilia Vaca Jones, January 10, 2023, 10 min
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 â
Kunal Kumar, Rushda Majeed, and Sree Kumar Kumaraswamy, September 13, 2022, 6 min
Child-centric urban planning is about more than just building playgrounds. Here, Kunal Kumar, Rushda Majeed and Sree Kumar Kumaraswamy outline four ways to make neighbourhoods better for very young children, from creating dedicated spaces for play to improving early childhood care centres. The 10 winning cities of the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge were announced by the Read more â
Sudeshna Chatterjee, September 6, 2022, 13 min
In our latest from our Ask an Expert series, we speak with Sudeshna Chatterjee, a globally recognised urban practitioner and researcher about what it takes to enable inclusive, resilient and child-sensitive urbanisation in low-and middle-income countries. Can you describe your journey into childrenâs environments? I grew up in Kolkata in India, in a neighbourhood with Read more â
Cities4Children, August 16, 2022, 8 min
What are Open Streets? Why are they important for children, vulnerable groups and cities? What are the key ingredients that make Open Streets successful in cities? On 19 April 2022, Gil Peñalosa hosted an online webinar called Open Streets/CiclovĂas: Meeting as Equals â Public Health Benefits where he and Dr. Olga L. Sarmiento addressed some Read more â
Cities4Children , April 26, 2022, 9 min
We speak to Gil Penalosa, founder and chair of 8 80 Cities. After many years running the organisation as Executive Director, he now serves as Chair of the Board of Directors. We speak to him about the impact city parks can have on the urban environment as part of our Ask an Expert series. Letâs Read more â
