Urban Governance For Health : W.H.O Presents Project To Government

The Resident Representative of the World Health Organisation (W.H.O), Habimana Phanuel on March 1, 2022 presented the Urban Governance for Health and Wellbeing project to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development Celestine Ketcha Courtes. Urban Governance is a strategic action to systematically address health determinants and promote wellbeing to a society applying whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches.  W.H.O is working with five cities around the world in promoting health and wellbeing through civic engagement in Bogota (Colombia), Mexico City (Mexico), Khulna City (Bangladesh), Douala (Cameroon) and Tunis (Tunisia).
Mayors of these five cities have committed to tackle these priorities by enhancing current mechanisms for participatory urban governance for health and wellbeing through multisectoral collaboration and community engagement and promoting social innovations and dialogues at local levels. This project will provide a key contribution to W.H.O’s efforts to scale up technical and policy advice to member States and city leaders to strengthen urban health. Habimana Phanuel said the project which was launched last November 2021, is being implemented by W.H.O and Douala Council in partnership with a Swiss Cooperation. He said W.H.O has succeeded to fully involve the Mayor of Douala into the project which seems to already bear fruits. Through the briefing with the Minister, the Representative of W.H.O believed that it is a way forward in institutionalising the project in Cameroon and giving it a chance to be spread to other cities in the country after a successful result in Douala. The project is focused on health promotion and inter-sectorial collaboration. In addressing health issues in the society, the W.H.O Representative said not just the health sector is needed. He explained that other sectors are needed because aspects of health are found in other sectors. An example to him is when talking about people, we talk about where they live, the kind of water they drink, the educational level of the population, their income, the kind of food they eat as we...