Experts Push for Cities Designed With Women to Improve Public Safety
Experts and delegates called for women and girls to be partners in designing public spaces, at a national consultation marking 15 years of UN Women's Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces initiative.
Women and girls must be treated as partners in the design of public spaces, a delegate told a national consultation, arguing that safer cities cannot be built without the people who use them most.
The consultation was organised to mark 15 years of the UN Women's Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces initiative, a programme focused on preventing sexual harassment and violence against women and girls in urban areas.
Speakers at the gathering made the case for planning that begins with the lived experience of women and girls, rather than treating their safety as an afterthought. When public spaces are designed for and by women, the discussion suggested, the result is an environment that is safer and more inclusive for everyone.
The event brought together experts and delegates to review the initiative's work and to push for approaches that place women at the centre of decisions about streets, transport, parks and other shared urban spaces.
No specific policy announcements or timelines emerged from the consultation, which focused on the principle that women's participation in urban design is central to making cities safer.