25 cities selected for Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge

Context

• The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry announced the names of the 25 cities selected for the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge under the Smart Cities Mission.

What is Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge?

• The Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge is a 3-year initiative.
• It is hosted by the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, in collaboration with the Bernard van Leer Foundation and WRI India.
• Aim: The Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge aims to incorporate a focus on early childhood development (0-5-year-old children) in the planning and management of Indian cities.

Objectives of initiative

• The Challenge enables Indian cities to adopt an early childhood lens in designing neighborhood-level improvements that promote the health and well-being of young children and their caregivers.
• The initiative will focus on working with Indian cities and their partners
  • To improve public space, mobility, neighborhood planning, access to early childhood services and amenities, and data management across city agencies.
  • To build a platform for peer-to-peer learning and sharing best practices between cities.

25 Listed cities

• The selected cities were Agartala, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Dharamshala, Erode, Hubballi-Dharwad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Kakinada, Kochi, Kohima, Kota, Nagpur, Rajkot, Ranchi, Rohtak, Rourkela, Salem, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruppur, Ujjain, Vadodara, and Warangal.
• The shortlisted cities would carry out projects for making early childhood-friendly neighborhoods.