WHO International Healthy Cities Conference
Healthy Cities 2014 Newsletter

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY 23 OCTOBER 2014

CONTENTS:

Michele Acuto

Ilona Kickbusch

MAYORS CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Thursday’s plenary session consisted of two parts:

Part 1 included a presentation entitled “The role of the Russian Association of Healthy Cities and Rural Settlements”, delivered by Oleg Kuvshinnikov, Governor of Vologda, Russian Federation. Also, keynote speeches on the “The power of city diplomacy” were addressed by Michele Acuto, Director, University College London, City Leadership Initiative, United Kingdom; and “Food for thought: emerging roles of cities in the 21st century” by Ilona Kickbusch, WHO adviser, Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland.

Members of the political panel: Pantelis Χyridakis, Mayor, City of Philothei-Psychiko Olga Kazanskaya, Vice Governor, St Petersburg, Russian Federation; Petteri Paronen, Mayor, City of Kuopio, Finland; Charlotte Marchandise, Health Delegate Rennes, President, French Healthy Cities Network; Sorin Mircea Oprescu, Mayor, Bucharest, Romania and Fernando Florez, Mayor, Tunja, Colombia.

In Part 2, a political panel, consisting of politicians from cities and national networks discussed the theme: “The city way: visions and problem-solving”. Visions and challenges of delivering change to make a difference in creating healthy cities and tackling inequalities were heard from politicians. The debate tried to create a common understanding of the key elements for success in political leadership and addressing the key problems reported.

Ilona Kickbusch, Bosse Pettersson, Fotios Papathanassiou, Agis D. Tsouros and, Michele Acuto formed the panel of the round-table.

ROUND TABLE 5: CITY HEALTH DIPLOMACY

The purpose of the session was to explore city health diplomacy as an emerging role for city leaders from the perspectives of global health and city diplomacy; in particular, to identify issues and areas where city leaders can have an influence on global developments relating to health and sustainable development. The table will also explored the emerging role of mayors with more direct responsibilities locally for health and wellbeing.

ROUND TABLE 6: AGE-FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENTS: WHAT SUPPORT CAN EUROPEAN, REGIONAL AND SUB-NATIONAL INITITATIVES PROVIDE?

The number of European, national and sub-national initiatives to support age-friendly environments is increasing rapidly. This round table discussed ways of fostering synergies in Europe, as well as the expectations for the role that WHO can play to work towards common approaches, such as in the context of the Health 2020 framework and the Strategy and action plan for healthy ageing in Europe.

Different organizations participated in the session: Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland; Prolepsis Institute, Greece; Division of Innovation for Health and Consumers, DG for Health and Consumers, European Commission; the Hellenic Ministry of Health; and WHO representatives from Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities; Urban Health, WHO Centre for Health Development, and the Regional Office for Europe.

ROUND TABLE 7: URBAN POLICIES THAT MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE AND AIR POLLUTANTS AND THAT HAVE THE LARGEST HEALTH CO-BENEFITS

This roundtable discussion, aiming to discuss with the Healthy Cities Movement the vision for achieving health benefits from city policies to mitigate climate change and air pollution (which is being put forward by the WHO and the Climate and Clean Coalition-CCAC) was part of a global scoping analysis of the gaps and opportunities for cities to engage in mitigation of short acting climate pollutants and air pollution. This analysis will feed into a new initiative, to support cities to take up sector policies with most health benefits. The extensive experience in inter-sectoral work from healthy cities is key to frame this new initiative, which should also look at the role of the health sector in influencing other sector policies, the useful knowledge and tools, the most common barriers and ways to address them. The session was chaired by Dr. Carlos Dora. Discussants: Dr Graham Alabaster and Prof Jean Simos.

Kira Fortune, Gina Watson, Agis Tsouros, Jinkee Kim, Connie Petersen, Mohsen Asadi-Lari, Zahir Al-Anqoudi.

Presentations were made by Jill Farrington, João Breda, and Alfonso Contreras; facilitator: Gabriel Scally.

Lefteris Ambatzis, Helena Stamou, Chris Alefantis, Giorgos Makrynos, Pantelis Kastrinakis, Irini-Emilia Ioannidou and Sevi Mamouri.

ROUND TABLE 8: HEALTHY CITIES AROUND THE WORLD

Experiences in Healthy cities around the world were presented in this session, by Jinhee Kim, WHO Kobe, Japan; Sifa Mohammed, Deputy Mayor, Malé City Council, Maldives; Asma Ibrahim, Director, Health Protection Agency, Maldives; Zahir Al-Anqoudi, Ministry of Health, Oman; Mohsen Asadi Lari, Ministry of Health, Tehran, Iran; Alfonso Contreras, Regional Advisor, Health Promotion; Kira Fortune, WHO PAHO, Washington DC; Gina Watson, WHO PAHO, Columbia; Robow Mohamed Hassen, Majority Leader, Mandera County Government, Nairobi, Kenya; Apedoh Koudzo Delava and Massassaba Fousseni, Lomé, Togo; Imonede Kingsley Iyore, Ministry of Environment, Lagos State, Nigeria, and Agis D. Tsouros, WHO EURO, Copenhagen.

ROUND TABLE 9: TACKLING OBESITY - PROMOTING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND HEALTHY NUTRITION: THE POWER OF LOCAL ACTION

The aim of the table is to discuss in an interactive fashion the following issues: cities preventing obesity in children - state of play in WHO European Region; measuring obesity, PA and diet at local level; good practice examples and determinants of success when preventing and tackling obesity at local level; intersectoral collaboration at local level.

PARALLEL SESSION ACTIVE CITIZENS

Good practices concerning various aspects of promoting well-being in an urban setting were presented by representatives of NGOs, such as Chris Alefantis – Shedia street paper; Danai Vallianatou – PRAKSIS; Irini-Emilia Ioannidou & Lefteris Ambatzis – Swapping bookshelf: vivliothiki.org; Irini Gratsia – Monumenta. Helena Stamou – Paideiatrofi, and Pantelis Kastrinakis – Voluntary Rescue Team for Disasters & Crisis. Facilitator: Giorgos Makrynos, Vice-President of the Hellenic Healthy Cities Network.

DO NOT MISS TODAY 24 OCTOBER 2014

Today’s sessions focus is on the special themes
Designing healthy cities & City tourism and health

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At 8:30, the morning plenary is dedicated to healthy cities design & environment issues.

At round-table 10 find out whether there is consensus among different countries on what healthy urban design means.

A touch of history, by Professor Stephanos Geroulanos’ presentation on “Health and the city in ancient Greece”

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