Child Friendly City

Client: Bernard van Leer Foundation


Planning and Design Expertise

Urban Development Sector


Cities have a huge influence on shaping one’s early childhood development and their experiences while growing up. Thus, providing a safe, accessible and healthy urban environment for Young Children is crucial for their early childhood development. They interact with the built environment when they live, play, and move through the cities. Children upto 5 years of age and their Caregivers are often remained unaddressed while planning and designing cities. Thus, the vision of the Project was to ‘Transforming a City into Child-Friendly City by improving the quality of life for children upto 5 years and their caregivers through urban planning, design, and policy.’ The idea was to make the city safe, accessible, playful, green and inclusive for the target users. The scope of work of Ecofirst included:

  • Review of Existing Policy Framework to integrate and institutionalize child-friendly features in city planning, assuring city level impact and future sustenance.
  • Tactical Urbanism Interventions to help in breaking down the resistance to change and inform best practices for planning and designing efforts in Pilot Projects.
  • Pilot Projects in different sections like, social infrastructure, green open spaces, streets, neighbourhood planning to introduce examples on children specific needs in built environment.
  • Development of Urban Safety Guidelines for Young Children and their Caregivers.
  • Conducting Amplifier Workshop on designing child and family friendly cities for urban practitioners such as engineers, planners and designers.

Project details

  • Building Typology: Urban Development
  • Services Offered: Urban Design and Planning
  • Project Status: Ongoing

Value Additions/Project Highlights

  • Created safer crossing, outdoor playful environment for Anganwadis and in garden etc.
  • Engagement of community, local NGOs, RWAs and children in pre-design and implementation stage encouraged them to interact with the space more as they develop a sense of ownership and responsibility to maintain it.
  • Developed a safety design guideline for Young Children and their Caregivers.
  • Proposed recommendations in present planning and policy framework through an in-depth gap –analysis of 13 planning and policy documents.
  • Capacity building of Urban Practitioners to design and develop child and family friendly cities.