DATE & TIME
Monday
May 23, 2016
12:15 PM - 2:00 PM
Lunch will be served
VENUE
Geneva International Convention Center (CICG)
17 rue de Varembé
CO-SPONSORS
The International Society for Urban Health (ISUH)
The InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAP-Health)
Eminence
Bangladesh Urban Health Network
Bangladesh NCD Alliance
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The New Urban Agenda: An Opportunity
for Urban Health
Side Event to the 69th World Health Assembly
This side event to the 69th World Health Assembly will highlight the urgancy of incorporating attention to the broad determinants of health in SDG implementation and the HABITAT III New Urban Agenda.
ObjectivesIn the Dhaka Statement (2015), the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) made recommendations on how urban health can be incorporated into the SDGs and national sustainable development plans. And as a member of the World Urban Campaign of UN-Habitat, the ISUH partnered with the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health to host the only Urban Thinkers Campus on Health and Wellbeing to inform The City We Need 2.0. Speakers at this session will provide examples of how cross-sectoral action on the determinants of health are critical to creating the conditions in which people can be as healthy as they can be and to create clean, safe, accessible, and resilient cities.
PROGRAM
Chair: Shamim Hayder Talukder, President, ISUH and CEO, Eminence
Moderator: Jo Ivey Boufford, President, The New York Academy of Medicine (ISUH Secretariat)
Speakers:
- Carlos Dora, Coordinator, Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health Department, World Health Organization: Urban Health and Global Environmental Change
- Sawsan A.S. Al Madhi, Director General, Friends of Cancer Patients: Action on Social Determinants of Health to Promote Healthy Urban Settings
- Representative, WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities
- Sue Henshall, Union for International Cancer Control: Cancer and Urban Health in Developing Countries: Identifying Challenges
- Representative, World Heart Federation: Urban Health and the Challenges of NCDs
Special Guest: Syed Monjurul Islam, Senior Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh
Chief Guest: HE Ameera Bin Karam, President, Friends of Cancer Patients
Background:
Health has been largely absent from deliberations and planning for HABITAT III. A goal in itself as well as a precursor to urban security and prosperity, health should be central to the New Urban Agenda–the outcome document to be agreed upon at the HABITAT III conference. Cities are sources of opportunity, choice and resources but many aspects of urban environments – slums, violence, crowding – pose physical and mental health risks. The many negative consequences of unplanned urbanization can exacerbate the triple threat of non-communicable disease, infectious disease and accidents/injuries, “eroding the promise of an inclusive New Urban Agenda”.
The recently released Global Report on Urban Health by the World Health Organization and UN HABITAT calls NCDs “the new urban epidemic” with a disproportionate impact in the developing world. Many aspects of urban life and the environment influence the primary causes and risk factors for NCDs: these include a city’s spatial layout, housing, neighborhood conditions and safety, transportation systems, the urban food environment, education and other social factors. Not only, then, is the health sector indispensable to sustainable urban development: collaboration across a wide range of sectors is essential to responding to NCDs. Both SDG implementation and action to realize the New Urban Agenda must prioritize urban planning for health, cross-sectoral action to build address the determinants of health and health impact assessments of policies outside the health sector. In order to ensure healthy urban environments, resilience and reduced inequities, the health sector should have a core function in urban planning, governance, finance and tracking.
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