2017 International Seminar on Sustainable and Healthy Cities Held in Beijing

“A healthy City for You, Me, and All”. The International Seminar on Sustainable and Healthy Cities, took place in Beijing on November 10, 2017, guided by National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Patriotic Health Campaign Office, and organized by World Health Organization(WHO) and China Center for Urban Development(CCUD), with support from Institute for China Sustainable Urbanization, Tsinghua University. Over a hundred participants joined the seminar including members of the China International Cities Development Alliance(CICAD), city mayors, representatives of the local development and reform commissions(DRCs), representatives of international organizations, well-known experts and scholars at home and abroad, and entrepreneurs, and discussed over healthy city and sustainable development planning.

This Seminar is to further implement the List of Deliverables of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation(BRF), which include the the Letter of Intent (LoI) that China International Cities Development Alliance (CCUD as the Secretariat) and World Health Organization (WHO) signed on the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) to collaborate on urban health governance.

Xu Lin, Director General of CCUD, delivered opening remarks on this seminar. It was expected that CCUD and WHO will deepen cooperation on healthy cities plans, environment, social frameworks and services optimization among others, make jointly efforts for healthy city governance, and provide more platforms, scalable experiences and urbanization public products on healthy development for cities at home and abroad.

Kasai Takeshi, Director of WHO Western Pacific programme management, said : “ How and where we live are critical to our health as comfortable living environment can improve our health, daily life and social prosperity. We expect to deepen cooperation with CCUD and other relevant departments.”

Zhang Yong, Deputy Director General of National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) pointed out that a healthy city is key to a healthy nation, as city is the center of politics, economy and social life. To build a healthy city is to systematically improve people’s well-being which calls for joint efforts from governments and society. Meanwhile, international exchanges should be strengthened to push global healthy city movement and achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Seminar held talks on Urban Planning, Design and Health, Urban Service, Environment and Health, and Health Ageing and Urban Accessibilities, and underlines that healthy city makes significant difference to global sustainable development.

In particular, in the spirit of One Belt and Road international cooperation documents, CCUD will work with WHO to set up World Cities Development Alliance as a communication platform for healthy cities at home and abroad, hold annual international forums on sustainable and healthy cities, build demonstration cities of international healthy and sustainable development with world top concepts and best practices, and develop new models of Chinese healthy cities. Moreover, they will publish annual reports on sustainable development of healthy cities, sum up more replicable experiences, offer more urbanization public goods, and deepen cooperation in healthy cities and sustainable urban development along the Belt and Road.

On March 20, 2017, CICAD was formally established under the guidance of NDRC. It is an open international platform for cities cooperation, aiming to provide a platform to introduce international resources for cities, create an authoritative platform for exchanges and cooperation among cities, enterprises, think tanks and institutes, and broaden communications and collaboration based on this platform.

Provided by CCUD