Regional Meeting with Multisectoral Partners on Urban Governance for Health and Well-being in South-East Asia Region

Overview

The Regional Meeting with Multisectoral Partners on Urban Governance for Health and Well-being on 27- 29 September 2022, brought together over one hundred participants from multidisciplinary and multisectoral backgrounds.

The participants were representing national and local governments, international organizations, professional associations, and academic institutes. A set of recommendations derived from technical discussions, country presentations, group works, and consultation through this meeting was suggested to the national and local governments in the Region and to WHO, UN agencies and international partners. Recognizing the importance of the complexity of urbanization, urban health issues and capacities of national and local organizational settings, the participants agreed that healthy cities approaches and urban governance for health and well-being are important strategies to systematically address urban health issues.

These approaches, however, need to be adapted to the national and local contexts, and aligned with the existing urban governance structure and systems, which can help leverage institutional, administrative, and financial processes of the governments. The purpose of the adaptation is to cater to the local needs, and foster partnerships among relevant sectors and stakeholders for making cities socially, economically, culturally, and environmentally viable and sustainable. The partnerships between national and local governments as well as between international agencies and local governments should be optimized and deepened to reach the shared goals of achieving healthier population and sustainable development.