WHO suggest that a healthy and liveable city must have access to adequate water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management and food
Building healthy and liveable cities is among one of the steps published under the World Health Organization (WHO) Manifesto for a healthy recovery from Covid-19.
As of now, over half of the world’s population is living in cities and therefore are responsible for over 60 percent of both economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions.
To build healthy and liveable cities, WHO recommended to integrate health into urban planning policies. This is to promote active living, sustainable mobility, energy efficiency, healthy diets and access to essential services.
This includes prioritise active and sustainable mobility by improving walking and cycling infrastructures as well as access to good-quality public and green open spaces such as safe play areas and recreational spaces for people of all ages and abilities, and creating citywide access to safer walking, biking, nature, public spaces and public transport.
In creating healthy and liveable cities, it should also consider social inclusiveness and cohesion through a variety in spatial planning such as in land parcel size, forms of land tenure, and size of housing and develop a common vision for social cohesion and health equity that includes the right for people to access, use and transform urban environments.
A healthy and liveable city must also ensure clean air through the implementation of interventions in polluting sectors such as transport and industry and through access to cleaner fuels and technologies for cooking, heating and lighting, adequate housing equipment and infrastructure development.
Apart from that, a healthy and liveable city must also have access to adequate water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management and food.
In providing housing development, more should be done to ensure access to affordable housing that is not crowded, where indoor temperatures and thermal insulation are adequate, that is equipped with safety devices, and where disease vectors are controlled.
