Bengaluru was honoured on Wednesday with the 2023 Partnership for Wholesome Cities Award, together with Montevideo in Uruguay; Mexico Metropolis, Mexico; Vancouver, Canada and Athens, Greece, on the inaugural Partnership for Wholesome Cities Summit held in London, a press release by the World Well being Organisation (WHO) mentioned.
The cities had been recognised for positively impacting the well being of their inhabitants and making sustainable and lasting strides towards NCD and damage prevention that may be replicated in different jurisdictions.
In keeping with the assertion, the 5 profitable cities every obtained $150,000 to additional their work with the partnership.
The Karnataka capital was awarded for its “efforts in tobacco management, particularly, lowering smoking in public locations and bettering compliance with current mandates on public smoking bans,” the assertion mentioned.
“The 5 cities being recognised right now display that mayors can drive highly effective progress to guard the well being of their residents,” WHO Director-Common Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus mentioned.
“WHO stays dedicated to working via the Partnership for Wholesome Cities to help mayors world wide, to construct cities that promote and defend well being reasonably than hurt it,” he added. Athens was honoured for rising entry to the opioid overdose reversal agent, naloxone, at community-based organisations and amongst healthcare professionals and Mexico Metropolis was recognised for bettering street security and protected and energetic mobility by launching a motorcycle path on a busy street, resulting in a 275 per cent enhance in cyclists.
Montevideo established dietary requirements for the preparation and sale of meals in authorities company places of work and a few public universities. It additionally targeted on sodium discount insurance policies and growing media campaigns and academic supplies.
Vancouver made public well being knowledge extra inclusive and accessible by launching a web-based public well being knowledge software that tracks inhabitants well being indicators and “working with city Indigenous communities to raised inform knowledge administration,” the assertion mentioned.
The Summit introduced collectively mayors and officers from greater than 50 main cities to debate pressing public well being issues and greatest practices that save lives and create more healthy cities, the assertion mentioned, including that making certain the well being and well-being of residents on the earth’s city centres is essential, with nearly all of the worldwide inhabitants now residing in city settings.
Noncommunicable ailments, together with coronary heart illness, stroke, most cancers, diabetes, and persistent respiratory ailments and accidents, are chargeable for over 80 per cent of all deaths globally.
In keeping with the assertion, cities are uniquely positioned to remodel the combat towards NCDs and accidents by implementing insurance policies that considerably scale back publicity to danger elements.
The Summit highlighted “greatest practices and confirmed interventions, which is very vital as public well being is liable to turning into much less of a precedence three years after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic,” in accordance with the assertion.
The primary-of-its-kind Summit was convened in London by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the WHO, Vital Strategies, and Mayor Sadiq Khan of London.
Based in 2017, the Partnership for Wholesome Cities is a worldwide community comprising 70 cities working collectively to stop NCDs and accidents. Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, in partnership with the WHO and Very important Methods, the initiative allows cities worldwide to ship a high-impact coverage or programmatic intervention to cut back NCDs and accidents of their communities.
Founding father of Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies, former New York Metropolis mayor and WHO World Ambassador for Noncommunicable Ailments and Accidents, Michael Bloomberg, mentioned given the positive factors achieved by the inaugural award winners, “we anticipate much more leaders will comply with of their footsteps as they create more healthy, extra vibrant cities.”
The mayors who attended the inaugural Partnership for Wholesome Cities Summit -and their metropolis’s public well being focus areas- included Mayor Kiritkumar Jivanlal Parmar of Ahmedabad, with a spotlight space on noncommunicable illness surveillance and Mayor Balendra Shah of Kathmandu, specializing in bettering air high quality surveillance.
