Barbara Summers, November 17, 2025, 8 min
How can we transform research and practice so that the lived experience and voices of communities and children in informal settlements can shape global climate resilience conversations? This blog explains how we did it in the waterfront settlements of Port Harcourt. Life in Port Harcourt’s waterfront settlements Port Harcourt is the largest city in the Read more →
Sarah Sabry and Anupama Nallari at the Urban Hub @ Save the Children , October 28, 2025, 10 min
Millions of children face unsafe, unequal, and unhealthy city environments. This blog outlines 24 compelling reasons why cities and towns must do better for children. Today, most of the world’s children are growing up in cities and towns. Yet for too many children in low- and middle-income countries, urban life means inadequate housing, unhealthy living Read more →
Tahmina Ferdousy, Kamrun Naher Ahmed, Mohammad Omar Faruque, Hayalnesh Tarekegn, and Rashed Shah from Save the Children's Bangladesh Sponsorship Team and the Urban Hub Team at Save the Children., September 23, 2025, 11 min
Community health workers (CHWs) in Bangladesh’s slums are improving healthcare access for children by addressing malnutrition, preventable diseases, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and maternal health. Organisations like BRAC and Save the Children are enhancing CHWs’ impact through training, mentoring and policy support, ensuring that the most at-risk children receive essential care. The UN Convention Read more →
Tannya Pico and The Urban Hub Team @ Save the Children , July 15, 2025, 8 min
In the hills and valleys of Quito, Ecuador, a quiet green revolution has been unfolding for over two decades. The Metropolitan District of Quito’s Participatory Urban Agriculture Project, also known as AGRUPAR, has significantly improved food security, nutrition, and inclusion for thousands of vulnerable children and families across the city. Urban Growth and Inequality in Read more →
Sudeshna Chatterjee, Louise Chawla, Deepti Talpade, Leticia Lozano, January 28, 2025, 10 min
Nearby trees, parks, gardens, green schoolyards, and other urban green spaces are not just ‘nice to have’; they are ‘need to have’ resources for health and wellbeing. This blog describes two examples of how children’s enthusiasm and creativity transform inner-city wastelands into green, inclusive community spaces. Why green spaces matter for everyone Compared to young Read more →
Mara Forbes, October 29, 2024, 5 min
Cities Alliance and Slum Dwellers International (SDI) , with financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), support youth-led climate action in informal settlements across 16 countries as part of the Building Resilience in Informal Settlements Programme. Informal settlements are home to some of the fastest-growing populations in the world, where over one billion people Read more →
Sudeshna Chatterjee, June 11, 2024, 11 min
The International Day of Play (IDOP) on June 11th is a unifying global moment to celebrate the power of play for all children everywhere. In this first blog of a 3-part blog series, Sudeshna Chatterjee describes the importance of play for children and demonstrates how local governments, urban practitioners, NGOs and communities can collaborate to Read more →
Anupama Nallari and Sarah Sabry at the urban Hub @ Save the Children, March 8, 2024, 8 min
What can you do to make cities places where girls and young women feel safe, valued, comfortable, empowered and experience equitable access to the city? Read our 2nd blog in the Public Space for Children blog series to learn more. In case you missed it, the first blog of the series spotlights public space interventions Read more →
Sarah Sabry and Anupama Nallari at the Urban Hub @ Save the Children, October 31, 2023, 8 min
Over 1 billion people – including close to 500 million children – live in slums and informal settlements, mostly in cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2023, the UN-Habitat Assembly approved a historic new Global Action Plan to accelerate transforming these informal settlements and slums. This plan aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 11 Read more →
Anupama Nallari and Sarah Sabry at the urban Hub @ Save the Children, July 25, 2023, 9 min
The world is getting warmer. That much is clear. Recent reports highlight that 2023 is likely to be the hottest year on record, with heatwaves and extreme heat affecting people globally. Extreme heat is a genuine threat to life and impacts the vulnerable – the very young and the elderly – most of all. A Read more →
Anupama Nallari and Sarah Sabry at the urban Hub @ Save the Children, June 13, 2023, 9 min
In dense, unplanned, and disadvantaged urban areas like slums and informal settlements, safe places and facilities where children can come together to learn, play, and access resources can be crucial for their health, development and wellbeing. In this blog, we share three types of facilities that deliver much-needed integrated services for children, young people and Read more →
Rob Hughes, Geoffrey Mboya and Elizabeth Kimani, May 2, 2023, 8 min
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 →
