A change in delivery
Over the next year, we’ll be changing the Child Friendly Cities & Communities programme to a locally led model. We are working with all our partners to develop tools and resources to help them continue to embed children’s rights into local decision-making structures. We’ll be supporting as many of our current partners as possible to achieve official recognition as a UNICEF Child Friendly City or Community (for those eligible), and on celebrating the progress that has been made for those earlier in their journeys.
From June 2026, the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) will no longer oversee the delivery of the programme in the UK. That means no new local authorities will be able to join the programme from June 2025, but guidance and resources will be made available over the coming months to support anyone wishing to embed children’s rights and a child rights-based approach into their local systems. Cities and communities who are already involved in the programme will continue to take forward this important work, building on their achievements to date and continuing to demonstrate the vital role local government plays in advancing the human rights of children.
UNICEF will continue to oversee the global Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI). CFCI is an international network for cities and communities around the world and those in the UK will still be able to access the resources and guidance provided on the CFCI website, in order to continue to uphold the rights of every child at the local level.
More about the programme and what it’s achieved
Child Friendly Cities & Communities is a partnership between UNICEF UK, councils and their local partners, and children and young people. Since 2017 we have been working together to advance children’s rights, so that all children and young people – especially those who are vulnerable or who have been marginalised – have a meaningful say in, and truly benefit from, the local decisions, services and spaces that shape their lives.
Over the past 9 years we have worked together on a programme of transformational change. We have demonstrated that placing child rights at the heart of cities and communities is an effective way to prioritise children. We have shown how taking a child rights-based approach across a complex local governance system results in significant impact, such as more children:
- having access to fair, non-discriminatory services;
- feeling safe in their communities;
- having affordable, accessible play and public spaces, and
- feeling listened to, respected and valued in their community.
Today, almost one million children and young people in the UK are growing up in a city or community that is actively working to place children’s rights at the centre of what it does.