Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge: Stories from Smart Cities

From January 2022 to December 2023, 10 winning cities in India are working towards becoming flagbearers for young children and family-friendly urban development. With 103 projects implemented among them, this report captures a rich variety of stories on developing capacities, implementing projects and institutionalising nurturing neighbourhoods.

Each city has made significant strides in scaling up neighbourhood-level interventions, mainstreaming young children and caregiver’s needs in urban local bodies, strengthening institutional capacity and conducive policies, and fostering partnerships with local communities to improve quality of life.

1.3 million potential users in the immediate surroundings—this includes caregivers of young children estimated to have benefitted, anganwadi and health workers and residents using the projects.

The Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge aims to incorporate a focus on neighbourhood-level improvements that promote healthy early childhood development (0-5 years) in the planning and management of Indian cities—the Challenge is hosted by the Smart Cities Mission, Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, in collaboration with the Van Leer Foundation and with the technical support of WRI India.