ISLAMABAD: The healthy city programme has started in Pakistan, with technical support from the World Health Organisation (WHO), during which 17 health, economic and social indicators will be targeted and monitored in the urban slums of the federal capital.
The assessment of the programme will be conducted in three months and the programme itself will be completed in the three years after.
WHO has started healthy city programmes in a number of cities across the world and Sharjah is the only one of the cities which has been given the status of a healthy city.
Talking to Dawn, WHO’s National Professional Officer Masooma Butt said that according to the definition of a healthy city, all residents of the said city are to be provided with all the basic facilities.
“We start the programme with the support of municipal administration in various countries. After selecting a city, we provide technical support to municipal administrations to improve the indicators related to environment, health, planning and the economy,” she said, adding that these may include the collection of garbage, sewerage systems, maternal and child mortality, vaccinations, water, income generation, community engagement and others.
Ms Butt explained that an assessment for the project will be conducted over the next three months before the project is started in different phases and that it will be completed in the next three years.
“The city administration can select some areas of the city or the whole city. For Islamabad, the municipal administration has told us they want to implement the project in the urban slums which is where we will be focusing,” she said.
Meanwhile, during a meeting held to discuss the programme, Islamabad Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz, who is also acting chairman of the Capital Development Authority, said the healthy city project will focus on comprehensive and systematic efforts to address inequalities and will target the needs of vulnerable segments.
“This important initiative will play a pivotal role in the formation of political, professional and technical alliance to achieve health improvement goals for Islamabad as well as to create a supportive environment in which innovative action for local development can take place. This is the best example of partnership between the public and private sectors as well as the civil society and this is the only systematic, sustainable way to comprehensively promote health and reduce in-equalities in urban settings,” he said.
During the meeting, WHO representative Dr Mohammad Assai said the beautiful capital of Pakistan can become a model city, not just for Pakistan but for the whole region.
“Lack of coordination among different sectors in developing countries and overlooking vulnerable population were the major cause the Millennium Development Goals failed. Challenges of the urban setting can be addressed through the Healthy City programme which is based on a multisectoral and integrated city management approach,” CDA Director General Health Services Dr Hassan Orooj said.
Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2017
