Environment Sustainability and Urban Planning High Dividend of Having Urban Child Database

By : Kanchan Dyuti Maiti, Debolina Kundu

Page No: 39-49

Abstract
The global urban population is expanding by 220,000 inhabitants every day or 80 million per year. Approximately a decade ago, the world officially became a majority urban planet. Along with urbanisation a great deal of human progress has come to pass, including great leaps in child survival and development. Data show that on average, compared to their rural peers, urban children have access to better essential services such as health care and education, water and sanitation, energy.1
This is in part due to factors associated with the so-called ‘urban advantage’. On average at a macro level, urban households earn higher incomes, benefit from improved infrastructure, have better education and reside in greater proximity to services. A closer look at the granular evidence, however, suggests that not all urban children are benefiting equally, and that the urban advantage for children is an overgeneralisation. Although on average, an urban advantage can be seen for most indicators, the urban advantage is not identical for most indicators and the urban population does not fare better in all countries.
“UNICEF’s global analysis shows that virtually every child is already exposed to disruptive climate hazards. One billion children – nearly half of the world’s total child population – are at ‘extremely high risk’ due to a deadly combination of high exposure to climate hazards and insufficient essential services to help them cope. “Climate change is also inextricably linked to water and food insecurity – to which children are especially vulnerable. Around the world, 450 million children live in areas of high, or extremely high, water vulnerability, while 27 million children under five years are facing severe food insecurity linked to drought. “At its heart, theclimate crisis is a child rights crisis. And it is robbing children of their health and homes, their cultures and way of life, and their futures.
One of the key recommendations of the evaluation, that has been accepted by UNICEF in its management response, is as follows: "In partnership with sister United Nations agencies, strengthen advocacy for child-responsive urban planning, participatory slum upgrading, safe public spaces for children and child-friendly transportation systems, and issues around urban waste and environmental degradation."2 However, for actuation of this would need measuring the various aspects impacting child development in the urban areas and measures of child's deprivation and vulnerability. This opens a whole new frontier of work for UNICEF and calls for a need to consolidate the work around the issues and other UN agencies, the Govt. and NGOs to be more strategic urban programming for environment, urbanisation and planning.
Though urban residents on average enjoy better access to services and opportunities, a substantial part of the urban population is being left behind. Intra-urban disparities can be so large that many of the most disadvantaged children and their families in urban areas fare worse than those in rural areas. For example, the poorest urban children in 1 in 4 countries are more likely to die before their fifth birthday than the poorest children in rural areas. And the poorest urban children in 1 in 6 countries are less likely to complete primary school than their counterparts in rural areas. This reversal of the ‘urban advantage’ is called the ‘urban paradox’3.

Authors :
Kanchan Dyuti Maiti : Independent Researcher on Data Systems & Management, earlier working in UNICEF, India.
Debolina Kundu : Professor, National Institute of Urban Affairs.