Promoting early childhood development through built environment transformations: lessons from the safe route project in Lima, Peru

ABSTRACTEarly childhood development is crucial for children’s growth and long-term outcomes. In Peru, the government has made investments in education and health, aiming to support child development programs. However, more work is needed in other areas to ensure all children can thrive. This paper explores the potential of interventions in the built environment as a relatively unexplored area that could benefit child’s development. We present the implementation of the ‘Safe Route to the “Mercedarias” daycare’ project as a successful experience for promoting child-friendly cities. The project involved collaboration among mid-level officers and frontline workers within a large municipality’s organizational structure. The strategies we used allowed us to build a working group willing to collaborate on further projects. The process was successful without requiring additional expenses beyond regular costs. Officers that had never been involved before felt engaged with the initiative while testimonies from caregivers indicated positive outputs. The case study could serve as an example to other cities of a successful model for promoting early childhood development in cities by engaging stakeholders at all levels in the identification of challenges faced by young children and caregivers while underscoring the importance of investing in urban environment interventions for improving children’s growth.KEYWORDS: Early childhood developmentbuilt environmentsafe routesLatin Americaurban governanceurban health AcknowledgementsWe want to thank the members of the ‘Limeños al Bicentenario team’ who were part of the Safe Route project and the implementation of the model: Carlos Javier Vega, Walter Juan Pablo Soto, Silvia Aragón, Laura Balcazar, Mariapía Garaycochea, Fátima García, Paolo Marinelli, Rosa María Torres, Jocelyn Cueto, Bean Jenson Marroquín, Yanela Tarazona, Renatto Godfrey. The authors acknowledge the participation of all the public officers and decision-makers who worked in the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima during the 2019–2022 administration and were part of the Urban 95 Lima projects.Author contributionsJCS and CDS had the original idea. JCS drafted the manuscript. CDS and AO reviewed the first draft of the manuscript and provided their suggestions. The authors had meetings to discuss the ideas, draft conclusions, and approve the final manuscript.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsJose Cepero-SaraviaJosé Cepero-Saravia is a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Design of UPC Peru. Associate at IntuyLab, an urban practice in Lima, Peru. Former executive coordinator of Urban 95-Lima.Cristina Dreifuss-SerranoCristina Dreifuss-Serrano is Fellow Researcher at the Women’s International Study Center (Santa Fe, NM) and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. She is a professor at Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, and Research Coordinator at IN-Investiga Independiente. Holds a PhD in Architecture: Theories and Projects by Università degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza.Ana OrtigozaAna Ortigoza is Health Equity Advisor at Pan American Health organization and formerly Senior Research Scientist – Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel University. (ortigozana@paho.org)