Rapid urbanization in Southeast Asia creates serious problems for children and young people.
Modern.az reports that these ideas were stated by Anaklaudia Rossbach, Executive Director of the UN-Habitat Program, at the panel session "Our Homes, Our Future: Co-designing Livable Urban Environments for Children and Youth" held within the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13).
She called on participants to see the global housing crisis through the eyes of children and young people:
“We can give an example of the daily difficulties of children living in informal settlements. Some children have to travel long distances to go to school because there is no school or transportation nearby. After returning from school, they have difficulty doing their homework because there are no safe and suitable conditions. Due to the unsuitability of living places, situations such as rain or power outages directly affect their education.”
A. Rossbach also touched upon the pandemic period and noted that many children did not have access to distance education due to digital inequality.
“The number of families living on the streets has increased, and the problem of homelessness has deepened, especially among women and children.
In addition, although children living in informal settlements often get sick, there is no clinic or medical service nearby. This negatively affects both their health and their educational life.”
The UN official also brought up the problem of housing accessibility for young people:
“Young people who come to new cities for education or work cannot start their work or university life comfortably due to high rent and housing prices.”
The UN-Habitat representative also stated that the organization is working on initiatives such as “Young Game Changers”, “Healthy Cities”, urban planning guidelines developed for women ministers, “Youth 2030”, “Cities for Children Global Alliance” and the UN inter-agency network for youth development. However, she emphasized that the existing initiatives are not enough and wider international cooperation is needed to solve the problem.
