UNICEF launches child friendly city toolkit
UNICEF has launched its toolkit for child friendly cities. Here, Louise Thivant, a policy and advocacy specialist with the agency, describes this new resource and its purpose.
UNICEF has launched the Child-Friendly Cities and Communities Initiative (CFCI) Toolkit for National Committees, at a time when interest in and the implementation of the CFCI is high. Based on extensive consultations with colleagues in National Committees and headquarters, the document is a milestone in UNICEF’s commitment to the CFCI programme.
The Toolkit contains tested step-by-step guidance and methodologies for establishing a child-friendly city or community that respects the rights and principles enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“Strong guidance and solid tools”
Gérard Bocquenet, UNICEF’s director of private fundraising and partnerships, says in his foreword to the new document:
‘The CFCI is a powerful and strategic tool to strengthen awareness and implementation of children’s rights and, most importantly, to enable children’s voices to be heard….This Toolkit is a milestone in our commitment to the CFCI. It offers strong guidance and solid tools that will assist our joint efforts towards realising UNICEF’s mission and bringing the UNICEF brand closer to the minds and hearts of the public, globally and locally …
The Toolkit arrives at a crucial time, when UNICEF is debating how we can strengthen the protection of children, meet their basic needs and expand their opportunities in urban settings. This Toolkit offers unique and tested guidance that will help us strengthen our interventions and make them more fit for purpose’.
As the Toolkit is based on good practice and lessons learned from countries in which UNICEF has national committees, it is tailored to the national committee context, but it can be applied by any community implementing the CFCI.
Louise Thivant
Policy and Advocacy Specialist, Advocacy and Innovative Partnerships,
UNICEF
Photo: Brian Evans
The new CFCI toolkit can be downloaded here
For more information about UNICEF’s Child Friendly City Initiative, please email Louise Thivant (below)
