UN: City kids miss out on services

By SHIRLYN BELDEN
MILLIONS of children in towns and cities tend to miss out on vital services because of rapid urbanisation, a United Nations report said.
The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World states that in a few years, the majority of children will grow up in towns and cities rather than in rural areas, with already about 60% of those born in urban areas accounting for the rapid increase in the urban population.
United Nations International Children’s Education Fund (Unicef) executive director Anthony Lake said an increasing number of children living in slums and shanty towns were the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world – deprived of the most basic services and denied the right to thrive.
“Excluding these children in the slums not only robs them of the chance to reach their full potential; it robs their societies of the economic benefits of having a well educated and healthy urban population,” Lake said in a statement released from New York yesterday.
Unicef is urging governments worldwide to prioritise children in their urban planning developments and to extend and improve services for all.
It said governments lacking accurate data to identify disparities among children in urban areas tended to neglect children’s issues in their planning.
“The deprivations endured by children in poor urban communities are often obscured by broad statistical
averages that lump together all city dwellers – poor and rich alike.
“When averages such as these are used in making urban policy and allocating resources, the needs of the poorest can be overlooked,” the report said.
The report is calling for greater recognition of community-based efforts to tackle urban poverty on children and adolescents.
The UN, under its agencies of Unicef and UN settlements programme, has worked more than 15 years on the child-friendly cities initiative in creating partnerships to make children the top agenda in providing urban services and creating a safer and healthier childhood.
“Urbanisation is a fact of life and we must invest more in cities, focusing greater attention on providing services to the children in the greatest need,” Lake said.