Safe and Inclusive Cities for Girls and Young Women: Ideas and guides for action

Girls and young women face distinct challenges in cities and urban contexts – and those living in informal settlements and slums grapple with even greater challenges, shaped by extreme inequities. Over the past 10 years, a plethora of practical guides have been published to support making cities better for girls and women. After reviewing 16 of the key guides on gender-sensitive urban planning – tools, toolkits and handbooks – we selected eight to feature in this brief, based on various criteria. Priority was given to guides that could be applied to informal contexts and the global South. After a short summary of the ways girls and women are excluded from urban planning, design and governance, this brief offers practical, action-oriented guidelines and recommendations drawn from the eight guides. This is followed by an analytical summary of the eight guides. The brief then presents two case studies from Lebanon and India where girls and young women have been engaged in gender-sensitive urban planning projects. This brief is intended for practitioners in both governmental and non-governmental organisations across development and urban planning fields. It offers a starting point to navigate the guides and view some of the worldwide efforts to reshape and reimagine safer, more inclusive cities for girls and women.

Practitioners can also find a table for comparative analysis and overview of the eight guides we identified here: https://cities4children.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mapping-of-Guides.xlsx

The Research Series
The Research Series: Cities for Children and Youth is published by Global Alliance – Cities4Children. This series includes publications reflecting on a range of issues faced by urban children and youth and sheds light on promising initiatives and practices for sustained change. The series aims to inspire action, add to knowledge, improve programme/project design and advocate for children’s and young people’s rights in the urban agenda. It is aimed at practitioners, policymakers, government officials, researchers and advocates for better cities for children and youth. The research series includes publications such as evidence to action briefs, case studies, practical guides, and tools to inspire action.

Link to publication: https://cities4children.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Safe-and-inclusive-cities-for-girls-and-young-women.pdf