ITDP assisted the City of Changsha in Central China to become the first city in the nation to be equipped with leading CFC measures. Many other Chinese cities are expected to follow Changsha's footstep to implement innovative actions to become child friendly.

According to Department of Transport Statistics, more than 18.5 thousand children (under 14 years old) died of traffic accidents in China every year – 2.5 times the number in Europe and 2.6 times in U.S.A. And the poor travel condition is one of the key components leading to these tragedies. Fortunately, Changsha city was aware of the importance to create better environment since last year, and with ITDP-China’s advocacy, Changsha Urban Planning Bureau included CFC initiative into the Changsha Long-term Development Plan 2050, and begun to launch a series improvement projects.

Since Last International Children’s Day, ITDP has been working for Changsha CFC project with Changsha Urban Planning Bureau, Shenzhen New Land Tool (SZNLT) and quite many local design institutes. ITDP-China provided technical inputs including preliminary trainings for government officials and staffs from different local design institutes, and the professional review for 10 pilot demonstration school proposals, which drew up 186 proposed implementation items, including 121 recent ones with 19.085 million Yuan investment and 65 long-term ones with 108 million Yuan investment. These improvements contains walking spaces, crossing, traffic organization, transportation infrastructures and public spaces around schools, aiming to establish a better environment for children’s studying, living and playing.

Changsha CFC School Area Urban Planning and Design was issued by Changsha Urban Planning Bureau in late 2016, which was mainly complied by ITDP-China and SZNLT, to provide the design guidelines at city level for the any newly-developed or regenerated school development.

Besides, ITDP-China has assisted Changsha Urban Planning Bureau and local design institutes to host a series of CFC communication activities, including Open Classes to the public in the Changsha Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, presentations to Urban Planning Bureau, Education Bureau, local design institutes, etc., to make children’s rights known. Adequate resource commitment and budget analysis for children from city government were ensured based on this project, which also gained great attention from media and the public.

Furthermore, as the precedent, during the design process, public participation especially for the children was greatly reflected, and all the practical experience has been summarized as Public Participation on CFC School Development.

As Changsha Urban Planning Bureau said, by this year’s International Children’s Day, Changsha city will implement improvements to a wider area around the schools, including implementing a refuge island, parking demand management, traffic organization for peak hours, sign integration, and public space upgrades.

Changsha’s contribution on CFC, including this project which won 2017 China’s CFC Community Service Projects Award issued by China Child-friendly Community Work Committee in April, has inspired a lot of Chinese cities’ awareness on CFC. ITDP-China was invited again to participate in Shenzhen CFC development on demonstration projects of communities, schools, hospitals and libraries. More technical support like transportation environment design, public space proposals, and international best practices will be provided. ITDP aims to promote more CFC demonstration projects in other Chines cities, and cooperate with national institutes to formulate national CFC guideline.

ITDP is working to scale up CFC development in China.