Children and Young People’s Participation in Planning - Implementing Child Friendly Cities

Within multiple fields, including urban geography, social work, children’s rights and childhood studies, there has been growing emphasis on the creation of ‘child-friendly cities’. This focus on children as important citizens within the city community forms part of a broader focus on sustainable development that includes the human and non-human environment. A child friendly city is a city which upholds children’s rights, as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Gokmen and Gulay Tasci, 2016). One of the most recognizable international child friendly city programmes is the UNICEF Child Friendly Cities Initiative, which is a local government international initiative established in 1996.

This project is developing a short literature review and systematic scoping study on the participation of children and young people in the implementation processes of Child Friendly cities within the UNIC network cities. As part of the projects networking activities University College Cork, in conjunction with Cork Child Friendly Cities, hosted a webinar ‘Sharing best practices on Child Friendly Cities within the UNIC Network: Insights and Perspectives from Cork, Zagreb and Istanbul’ on May 2nd 2024. Three UNIC city partners, Cork, Istanbul and Zagreb shared their experiences and insights of planning and implementing Child Friendly City Initiatives. The webinar explored the challenges and successes in children and youth participation in these initiatives and potential for the development of a network within UNIC which is focused on Child Friendly Cities.