Bucharest Mayoralty and UNICEF invite children and parents in Bucharest to say what the capital needs to become a child-friendly city

Bucharest, 12 April 2024. Bucharest Mayoralty and the UNICEF Representation in Romania invite children, teenagers and parents in Bucharest to answer two questionnaires on what a child-friendly city should look like.

The results will be used to carry out an analysis of the situation of children's rights and to develop the local action plan of the municipality of Bucharest within the framework of the Child Friendly Cities Initiative.

Nicușor Dan, Mayor of Bucharest: "Consulting the children of Bucharest on what a child-friendly city should look like is essential, because they are the future. This is the first step towards a truly inclusive community, where every child feels at home, has access to essential services and a healthy life, to education, so they can develop to their true potential."

Anna Riatti, UNICEF Representative in Romania: "I invite children and parents in Bucharest to access the questionnaires and share their opinion on what a child-friendly Bucharest should look like. The answers provided will help us better understand what it is like to be a child in the capital and what are the experiences and challenges parents and carers face in Romania's largest city. On the basis of these answers, a local action plan will be developed to make Bucharest a child-friendly city".

To answer the questionnaire, children (aged 10 to 18, from Bucharest) should go to https://bit.ly/ChestCopiiBucuresti. Survey participants are not asked for their names, as their answers are confidential. Completing the questionnaire takes approximately 20 minutes.

Parents can also have their say by filling in the questionnaire available at https://bit.ly/ChestUnicefPărințiBucuresti, the answers are also confidential.

The two questionnaires can be completed until 16 April 2024.

Child-Friendly Cities is an initiative that supports local authorities in fulfilling children's rights at local level and is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Launched in 1996 by UNICEF and UN-Habitat, it is a network that brings together authorities and other relevant actors such as non-governmental organisations, the private sector, academia, the media and, most importantly, children who want to make their cities and communities more child-friendly.

At the end of 2022, UNICEF and the Municipality of Bucharest signed a three-year memorandum of understanding for the municipality's participation in the Child-Friendly Cities Initiative, a concept developed by UNICEF at the global level and involving more than 5,600 localities in 48 countries and 30 million children. The agreement provides for an analysis of the situation of children's rights in the capital, and then the signatories will implement an action plan to make Bucharest a Child Friendly City.