Nagaland capital Kohima along with Rourkela from India have made it to the top 10 cities under Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge (NNC). The two cities have been selected for the Residency week at Urban 96 Academy, London, to be held from 10 to 14 October 2022.

The Kohima Smart City Development Ltd (KSCDL) participated in the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge (NNC) hosted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs that aims to incorporate a focus on neighbourhood-level improvements that promote healthy early childhood development (0-5 years).

Under the NNC, Kohima has adopted a new lens of visualizing the city from the perspective of infants, toddlers and caregivers.

In the first phase of the NNC, KSCDL had implemented five pilot projects and two major junctions across three neighbourhoods of Kohima in a span of seven months (April-October 2021) and benefitting over 10,000 young children and caregivers. The pilot projects included development of pocket parks, child friendly bus stops, improvisation of major junctions, provision of play spaces within premises of government schools and Anganwadis.

The Pocket Park in Forest colony which is part of the first pilot project was made successful with the active participation and contribution of the colony residents. Seeing the impact and positive outcome of communities being involved, the Kohima Smart City also aims to focus on community led development while implementing its 2nd phase of projects.

For the 2nd phase, the KSCDL and Kohima Municipal Council has already signed an MoU with WRI India for scaling up projects in Phase 2 of NNC.

KSCDL is looking forward to having one pocket park in each neighbourhood of Kohima, making streets and junctions safe for all, government facilities and amenities friendly for infant, toddler and their caregivers, and creating local champions and community leaders for community funding and taking ownership of neighbourhood projects.