Developing capacity for urban health

WHO is leading a learning initiative to help individuals and organizations develop a holistic and coordinated approach to practice and policy-making for health and well-being in cities, towns and suburbs.

WHO has developed and implemented a wide range of topic-specific training materials and programmes related to urban health at all levels – globally, regionally and locally. Building upon this long-standing work and experience, WHO is creating a global capacity development programme for urban health which aims to identify the capacities needed to provide and attain good health in urban areas, and to enable all stakeholders working for common cause in a collaborative and coordinated way.

The programme is to deliver two components: guidance for the assessment of urban health capacities (e.g., the primer) and an urban health training programme. The urban health capacity assessment primer will support cities and urban health actors in understanding their capacity gaps and setting milestones for further capacity development. The newly developed urban health training programme will cover both foundational knowledge and competencies for coordination and collaboration, and complementarity across a range of urban health sectors. The programme development will consider how to bring synergies with and maintain linkages to the existing urban health training programmes.