High-quality Construction of Child-Friendly Cities

to Create a New Engine of Urban Development

（Author: Dr. TANG Jian, Secretary-General of UNICCC)

Children are the future of the city and the hope of the country. They are the “smallest common denominator” of social governance and the “largest common denominator” of urban governance, which can promote “big changes” in urban construction and development. “ In 1996, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) jointly launched the Child-Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI), with the goal of improving the urban environment and effectively meeting the needs of children in urban areas by building and enhancing the capacity of local stakeholders. The goal of the CFCI is to improve the urban environment by building and enhancing the capacity of local stakeholders to effectively meet the needs of children for a wide range of activities in cities, to fully implement the rights of the child as mentioned in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to effectively safeguard the basic rights of the child. Child-friendly cities are the core carrier of sustainable development, a key element of global urban development strategies and plans, and have become one of the main indicators of the level of urban development and social civilization. High-quality construction of child-friendly cities and the creation of a new engine of urban development are the mainstream trend of global urban development, and have extremely important value in enhancing children's public welfare and promoting urban construction and development.

In terms of the current situation of child-friendly city construction, since the release of the “Child-Friendly Cities Initiative”, it has received positive responses from more than 3,000 cities and communities in more than 30 countries around the world. Currently, more than 1,000 cities have been recognized as “Child Friendly Cities”, benefiting more than 30 million children. According to the official website of UNICEF's “Child Friendly Cities Initiative”, countries that have successfully built child friendly cities include the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Brazil, Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Brazil and so on. In terms of the current situation of domestic construction, Shenzhen applied for joining the “Child-Friendly Cities Initiative” in 2016, thus starting a new journey of building child-friendly cities in China, followed by Shanghai, Chengdu, Changsha and other cities. 100 pilot projects for building child-friendly cities were listed as major projects in the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan at the beginning of 2021. 100 pilot projects for building child-friendly cities were listed as major projects in the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan. in September of the same year, 23 departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly issued the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Construction of Child-Friendly Cities”, which emphasized that the construction process of child-friendly cities should fully embody friendly social policies, friendly public services, friendly protection of rights, friendly space for growing up, and a friendly environment for development.

From the perspective of the relationship between the construction of child-friendly cities and urban development, high-quality construction of child-friendly cities has an important role in promoting urban development. First, it promotes consumption and investment. High-quality construction of child-friendly cities requires the construction of a variety of children's facilities and places, including children's parks, playgrounds and parent-child restaurants, etc., which will lead to the development of related industries, create more employment opportunities and promote consumption and investment. Secondly, it is to improve the happiness of urban residents. Children's happy growth is a key component of family happiness, and building a child-friendly city with high quality can provide a better living and learning environment for children, so that they can grow up healthily and happily, and thus improve the sense of family happiness. Thirdly, it is to cultivate future talents for urban development. High-quality construction of child-friendly cities emphasizes children's education and development, provides high-quality educational resources and a variety of extracurricular activities, improves children's comprehensive quality, and nurtures them to become the “successors” of urban construction and development. Fourth, to stimulate the city's innovative vitality. Children have strong creativity and imagination, and the construction of child-friendly cities with high quality can provide children with opportunities and spaces to give full play to their creativity, such as scientific and technological innovation laboratories, children's art studios, etc. Fifthly, it is to promote the sustainable development of the city. High-quality construction of child-friendly cities emphasizes environmental protection and sustainable development, providing children with green space, fresh air and safe drinking water, which is not only beneficial to children's healthy growth, but also more in line with the realistic needs of sustainable development of the city.

From the perspective of the path of building child-friendly cities with high quality, we should emphasize the establishment of a “four-in-one” promotion mechanism. First, the leadership and management mechanism. Building child-friendly cities with high quality is actually an innovation of urban governance centered on children's rights. For cities, child-friendliness is not only a new growth point in urban governance and development, but also an important hand in coordinating the interests of all parties to jointly plan and manage children's public affairs. Therefore, in order to resolve various conflicts of interest, realize multi-party synergy and cooperation, and safeguard children's basic rights, the establishment of a scientific and reasonable leadership and management mechanism is the essential demand for the high-quality construction of child-friendly cities. Second, the funding mechanism. New construction or remodeling of cities requires huge financial support, and the construction of child-friendly cities also requires effective financial measures for financing. Regardless of whether it is an old city or a new city, in the process of construction, it is necessary to grasp the diversified forms of urban development, emphasize the active participation of all stakeholders and residents, formulate a perfect financing plan and establish a reasonable funding and application mechanism, etc., so as to ensure that high-quality construction of child-friendly cities is carried out in an orderly manner. Thirdly, social coordination mechanism. The construction of child-friendly cities requires the joint participation of the government, enterprises, individuals and social organizations, so the establishment of a social coordination mechanism is crucial to the construction of child-friendly cities. From the governmental guidance and management level, promoting the formation of equal synergistic partnerships among all parties is an important measure for the high-quality construction of child-friendly cities and the integration of the advantageous resources of all parties. Fourth, multi-dimensional incentive mechanism. New concepts, new ideas, new things, especially new things like child-friendly, want to develop in the city, because it is related to the overall situation of city construction and development, so in the process of building child-friendly cities, we need to play a good combination of policies, introduce a number of public incentives; at the same time, we need to establish a multi-dimensional incentive mechanism, so as to increase the quality of building child-friendly cities and integrate the advantageous resources of all parties. At the same time, it is also necessary to establish a multi-dimensional incentive mechanism, so as to increase the value thickness and vitality of the high-quality construction of child-friendly cities.

All in all, children are the “living force” of urban development and national strength; building child-friendly cities with high quality is not only related to children's well-being, but also closely related to urban development. Therefore, in the context of the society paying great attention to the protection of children's rights, cities should firmly grasp the key point of building child-friendly cities with high quality, to create a new engine to lead the development of the city, and thus realize the sustainable development of the city!