Rapid urbanization is one of the most pressing issues facing the world today, and has an immense impact on the growing number of babies, toddlers and caregivers who are living in cities. Thoughtful urban planning and design can play a major role in giving children a good start in life.

That’s why the Bernard van Leer Foundation will be at the World Urban Forum next week to share knowledge and ideas around designing cities that help rather than hinder a child’s development.

Our Executive Director, Cecilia Vaca Jones, and our India Representative, Rushda Majeed, will both be participating in various sessions (more information below). If you would like to set up a time to meet with them outside these sessions, please contact Taissa.DeMelloPaduaBernardes@bvleerf.nl

Sunday 9^th February, 14:00–16:00, Hall 3, Room 17
Networking event; organised by Save the Children, UNICEF, IFRC, ARUP, European Network for Child Friendly Cities

Rushda Majeed, our India representative will join the panel with our partner ARUP to talk about making areas better for children and living in the most deprived and marginalised urban settlements.

Tuesday 11^th February, 14:00-16:00, Hall 3, Room 11
Networking event; organised by the National Institute of Urban Affairs, India

This event will mark the global launch of this proposed long-term Co-Laboratory for facilitating knowledge exchange, joint experimentation and coordinated action between megacities in the Global South, as they continue to grow, expand and develop. Our Executive Director Cecilia Vaca Jones will be joining the panel.

Tuesday 11^th February, 16:30-18:30, Hall 3, Room 16
Networking event; organised by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), USA

ITDP will be sharing their Access For All Series policy briefs, developed to address issues of inclusive Transit-orientated Development, and bring lessons learned from them. Different partners will present their perspectives on how to critically challenge and improve mobility paradigms in their cities, including policies on road safety, sprawl, public safety and access to economic and social opportunities. Our India representative Rushda Majeed will be speaking at this event.

Tuesday 11^th February, 16:30-18:30, Hall 3, Room 13
Networking event; organised by UNICEF, UN-Habitat, Arab Urban Development Institution, Saudi Arabia, and Urban Synergies Group, Australia

This networking event will focus on providing safe and sustainable public spaces for children. Cecilia Vaca Jones, our Executive Director, will be speaking at this event.

Wednesday 12^th February, 12:30–13:30, Hall 3, Room 18
Side event; organised by NIUA, India

Practitioners and researchers from NIUA, TERI, BBSR, SHLC partners and the Global Resilient Cities Network will discuss the various innovative approaches and tools they have adopted for driving sustainable urbanisation, including geospatial technologies. The event will also disseminate the lessons from the Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) on ‘The Resilient City We Need’, New Delhi, September 2019. The event will also disseminate the lessons from the Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) on ‘The Resilient City We Need’, New Delhi, September 2019. While the UTC focused on Indian cities, the lessons and outcomes are equally relevant for cities in Asia and Africa.

Rushda Majeed, our India representative, will be speaking at this event.

Wednesday 12^th February, 12:30-13:30, Hall 3, Room 14
Side event; organised by WRI, USA

This event will bring together our partners and colleagues from across the world working on recapturing a sustainable and safe street culture. Various experts, including Cecilia Vaca Jones, our Executive Director, will share their experience and results from cities around the world on using this new mobility culture to drive sustainable urban development.

Wednesday 12^th February, 14:00-14:45, Urban Library
Urban Library; organised by NACTO-Global Designing Cities Initiative, United States of America

This event will introduce Designing Streets for Kids – a new resource for envisioning, designing, planning and implementing urban street transformations focused on children and caregivers; discusses the many benefits of safe and sustainable street design; and showcases street design examples from around the world.

Wednesday 12^th February, 14:00-16:00, Networking event, Hall 2, Room 4
Networking event; organised by the Bernard van Leer Foundation & the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)

From the Urban95 approach, analyzing the built environment from the perspective of a young child (0-5 years old), to scalable sustainable transport measures from the street level to city-wide scale, this session will present mechanisms to address air pollution exposure in the short term, whilst waiting for larger structural changes to come into effect.

Speakers will highlight salient lessons and design interventions for reducing young children’s exposure to pollution, from their own sector’s perspective (street design, transport planning, early childhood development, climate change mitigation, local government).

Cecilia Vaca Jones, our Executive Director, and Rushda Majeed, our India Representative, will then join others on a panel to discuss the challenges of cross sector coordination for effective action against air pollution, grounding the discussion in the concrete cases from the Indian cities represented (Pune and Udaipur). Participants will then be introduced to tools and methods to think through solutions related to air pollution and sustainable transport, using scenarios from specific cities.

We have also compiled a list of other recommended sessions at the World Urban Forum that are either being run by one of our partners or have a focus on children.