My urban consultancy looked at the role of city governments in creating welcoming, equal and inclusive spaces for children on the move.
In 2020, approximately 36 million children under the age of 18 (1 in 66 children worldwide) resided in a country different from their birthplace. Those children could have been displaced internally within their own country or have migrated with or without their caregivers to a different country as refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants among others. Over the last 10 years, because of conflicts and climate change, the number of children on the move has more than doubled. While national governments are typically responsible for national policy related to migration and refugees in their countries, it is city and local governments, often unprepared and underfunded, that are pushed to the forefront of the displacement response.
For my urban consultancy, I chose the Mayor Migration Council (MMC) as a host organization. The MMC is a global coalition of mayors focused on accelerating action on migration and displacement. Since 2020, through its Global Cities Fund for Migrants and Refugees, the MMC has been supporting six city governments - Amman, Dunaivtsi, Guayaquil, Milan, Montevideo and Ramallah - in projects aimed at impacting children and caregivers among their urban displaced populations. My urban consultancy was designed to help the MMC in developing a strategic response to children on the move through their work with city governments.
At the start of the consultancy, my focus was on refugee children but the further I got into reading the literature and talking to the city government representatives, the more I realized that the focus should expand to “children on the move” rather than just refugee children. This was a beneficial pivot as many of the city governments supported by MMC were also dealing with internal displacement and economic migration in their cities.
During the literature review process, I was interested in finding examples of city governments-led responses to children on the move, in addition to researching the roles of city governments and the gaps they face in realizing the roles. I was very surprised to find that there are no documented practices of city governments-led responses to children in displacement. The existing evidence I happened upon was all led by civil society organizations, UN agencies or others. City governments should be supported to document, publish and share their own initiatives aimed at creating equal, inclusive and welcoming cities for children on the move.
Additionally, while the cities I interviewed had already prioritized and led child-focused initiatives, when asked about the roles of city governments in addressing the needs of children on the move, it was difficult to center the children in the conversation. The roles and challenges identified through the literature review and discussed by city governments could be applied to other population segments served by local governments. “We serve everyone equally” is a common approach among city governments but that doesn’t really respond to age, race and status specific needs of one of societies’ most vulnerable groups.
Having worked for over 15 years in the international humanitarian and development industry, with the focus on children in cities, this project has given me new insights from the perspective of city governments especially in relation to their responsibilities, capacities, challenges and ambitions. I was able to also better understand what city governments need in order to better respond to some of the most marginalized groups in their cities and what can organizations like the MMC and others do to support them.
My hope is for the research findings to be useful to my host organization and to help shape their future strategies in working with an expanded network of city governments on the theme of children on the move. This project has validated for me the importance of continuing to flag the urban children’s agenda. If I could give one piece of advice to future participants in the Executive Msc in Cities, I would say this: choose a topic you are passionate about and find a host organization that will help put your research findings into practice to better improve the way they are tackling the urban challenges they have prioritized.
Aline Rahbany is the technical director for urban programming at World Vision International, a global non-profit organization that works to improve the wellbeing of children impacted by poverty, violence, conflicts and other crises.
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