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Bonn wants to become a "child-friendly municipality"

At its December meeting, the City Council approved a project to acquire the "Child-Friendly Municipality" seal. The project is accompanied by the association of the same name, a joint initiative of Unicef and the German Children's Fund.

The City of Bonn sends a signal that it is actively committed to children's rights and undertakes to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at local level. To this end, the Council of the City of Bonn passed a resolution in principle at its most recent meeting on Thursday, December 8, 2022, so that the Federal City can strive for the "Child-Friendly Municipality" seal.

Municipal services, planning and structures are to be improved in line with children's rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is to be implemented consistently. The city is supported in this by the association of the same name, a joint initiative of Unicef and the German Children's Fund. By participating in the Child-Friendly Municipality process, Bonn is making the well-being of children and young people as well as future generations its benchmark.

"As a municipality, we have a central role to play in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the local level; this lays the foundation for sustainable child-friendly development," says Mayor Katja Dörner. "I am pleased to launch a project in the city of Bonn with the Child-Friendly Municipality, with which we are focusing more on the needs and rights of children and young people. We are ensuring that the voices of young people are not only heard, but also have real weight in the decisions of the city administration," the OB continued.

Next steps: contract agreement and interviewing children

As a next step, the city of Bonn will now conclude a corresponding project agreement with the "Child-Friendly Communities" association, then develop an action plan based on a site analysis and present the measures to be implemented to the political bodies for resolution. The action plan, which will be developed together with children and young people, is intended to form the basis for a more child-friendly Bonn. To this end, at least ten percent of Bonn's children between the ages of ten and twelve will be surveyed; an expansion of the target group is planned so that more needs can be surveyed. The aim here is to identify the structures and framework conditions that are already child-friendly in Bonn and, at the same time, to identify possible potential for improvement.

With the help of the survey results, experts develop recommendations, which in turn are incorporated into the action plan. This plan contains concrete measures for three years. If the council adopts this action plan, Bonn will be awarded the "Child-Friendly Community" seal and will then have three years to implement the adopted measures. The interdepartmental and city-wide implementation of the action plan requires coordinated cooperation between a wide range of departments. The project is managed by the Social Justice Program Office.

Participation in the certification process costs 20,000 euros per year, plus annual project costs of 5,000 euros. The project is scheduled to run for five years.

The action plan concerns a wide variety of measures from many areas of the city: mobility, urban planning, sports, culture, health or the environment. Children and young people are already involved, for example in playground planning or in the topic of youth work. In the future, however, this should be institutionalized and mandatory. The aim is to network and coordinate existing actors and processes, avoiding parallel structures and creating synergies instead.

Background on children's rights and municipalities

In 1989, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. In 1992, it was ratified in Germany and since 2010 has been considered an international treaty on a par with a federal law. The "child friendly cities" initiative founded by Unicef is intended to help cities and municipalities implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in practice. The German equivalent is the "child-friendly municipalities" association, which is a joint initiative of Unicef and the German Children's Fund. The association provides expert support to municipalities in anchoring and taking into account children's rights in municipal (administrative) action.

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