IPA CIS discover the Healthy Cities initiative

IPA CIS SG Alexey Sergeev welcomed the WHO delegation at the Tavricheskiy Palace. The Assembly has drafted a record 385 model laws, mainly in the humanitarian area, many of which benefited from expert advice from the WHO, said Sergeev. 

The purpose of the meeting was to introduce IPA CIS into the initiative Healthy Cities launched by the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Today, the Healthy Cities went beyond the format of an initiative to become a fully-fledged international drive fully armed with a conceptual framework, a motivation, as well as evidence – based knowledge generated by the cities with an ambition to improve the state of health of their communities. Healthy Cities covers nearly every aspect of urban life. The overarching theme is healthy urban environment, mitigating non-infectious diseases, improvement of heath status of city dwellers across all ages.

Today, the project engages 1500 European cities – members of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network benefiting the support of leading scholars from across Europe and the world.

Special Representative of the WHO Regional Office for Europe Tsuros Agis who is also the supervisor of the project thanked the IPA CIS for a warm reception and offered a briefing on the project. The Chairman of the IPA CIS Expert Board Yuri Scherbuk briefed the guests on the current work and challenges lying ahead.

Alexey Sergeev noted that initiative needed parliamentary support since it will need harmonization of national laws and legislative action.