Challenges before Children Growing Up in Cities

UNICEF REPRESENTATIVE IN INDIA ON GREAT INEQUITIES, OPPORTUNITIES AND DEPRIVATION IN TOWNS AND CITIES

[The following are excerpts from the speech by Karin Hulshof, the UNICEF Representative in India, at the launch of The State of World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World in New Delhi on February 29, 2012. The document was released by Dr Shanta Sinha, Chairperson, National Commission
for Protection of Child Rights.]

Today, more than fifty per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas and their numbers are growing. Of these, over one billion are children. By 2050 two-thirds of the world’s people are expected to live in towns and cities, telling us that urban childhood will become the norm.

Half of the world’s urban population lives in Asia, and that brings us to India. India currently has an estimated urban population of 377 million people and by 2026 it is expected that forty per cent of the total population in India will live in urban areas.

These are only numbers, though over-whelming; we need to look at the analysis and stories behind this. As you have earlier heard the tale of 11-year old Anas, a boy in Moradabad drawn into labour at an early age, there are many other stories where cities are failing the needs of children. In the not very distant future, most children will grow up in a town or a city and their urban childhood reflect the broad disparities that cities contain: rich beside poor, the opportunity for social mobility beside the struggle for survival.

The report in front of us today talks about the main challenges the children face around the world growing up in cities, including the unequal access to basic services, high rates of under-nutrition and under-five mortality, low access to water and sanitation, and the impact of natural hazards and economic shocks.
The data for India (although limited and not disaggregated to understand the situation of urban children) tell us a similar story. If we look at the national averages for most key child indicators, the advantage the urban has over the rural is clear. Many children enjoy the advantages of the urban life such as schools, clinics and play-grounds, but when breaking down the numbers between the urban poor and urban rich, the storyline is changing. We now see how a child growing up in an urban poor environment has similar challenges as a child in rural India when it comes to her or his health, nutrition, access to water and sanitation, education and protection. A child born in a slum in urban India is as likely to die before her or his first birthday, to become underweight or anaemic, or to be married off before her 18th, as a child in rural India. Unfortunately for the urban poor child, the situation is most of the time not as visible and gets diluted by a much rosier picture of urban life and opportunities. Great inequities are found within towns and cities, where great opportunity and great deprivation exist side by side.

There are numerous examples, where a concentrated and targeted approach to reach those hardest to reach can be successful. In this year’s report, UNICEF’s Goodwill Ambassador, Amitabh Bachchan, talks about how India’s polio eradication programme demonstrates that it is possible to ensure equity in the availability of health services in even the poorest, most densely populated environments. As he says, “All too often, the hardest-to-reach children in our country are living right under out noses.”

UNICEF has over the years gained experience in working for and with the urban poor children. From the earlier work in Urban Basic Services, UNICEF is now gearing up to focus on urban policies for children in the next country programme of cooperation with the Government of India.

It is therefore that UNICEF is proud to partner, since 2010, with the “School Excellence Prog-ramme” in Mumbai enhancing learning outcomes of urban slum children aiming to reach almost half-a-million children. In collaboration with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, civil society and private partners this initiative shows the potential for progress when forces are joined and issues of inequity are addressed. This is part of the promise to children to ensure that cities are liveable and safe places for millions of children who call them home. We look forward to work in close partnership with the Government and build on these initiatives focusing on governance and urban development.

Today in India we count 97 million urban poor who live in one of the nearly 50,000 slums that the country has. With the projected growth of the urban population in India in the next fifteen years to over half-a-billion people, we need to better understand the situation of children living in this rapidly growing urban environment. People have always migrated in search of better opportunities and will continue to do so. Migration is a response to the push of rural poverty and deprivation, and the pull of urban opportunities.

For UNICEF it is important to ensure the inclusions of child rights in the urban agenda. We will need to have the information to better understand the scale and nature of poverty and exclusion affecting children in urban areas. Also, children and young people in cities must be involved in finding solutions to urban challenges. Living in cities is appealing for many, including greater access to information and chances for social mobility.

Addressing the situation of children in the urban world, large and strong partnerships will be required, and resources will need to be pooled. Today, UNICEF hopes to have taken another step in building these partnerships by putting a special lens on the situation of children in urban areas.

Cities will continue to grow and more children will find themselves living in an urban world; a world that holds the promise for many of employment, development and economic growth. It is up to us to make sure that cities will live up to that promise: a life of equal opportunity and dignity for all children.