Healthy and Age-Friendly Cities

Guiding questions:
How can cities be again places where people are in the center (not cars or investments) and where it is safe to walk and play and rest? How can cities be made more healthy for their residents? Can more green spaces and safe and universally accessible pedestrian and bicycle networks, public transport and buildings contribute to enhanced public health nd age-friendly environments? Are cities fit for the emerging four-generation urban society around the world, with more elderly people in all high-income countries and in many developing countries? Can new models of community and housing arrangements promote stronger cohesion and lively connections among all generations friendly for children and elderly people, and vulnerable people?

The event:
It will bring together people from multinational agencies, national and local governments (Korea, Japan, Singapore, People’s Republic of China, India, and others from Asia and Africa), NGOs, CSOs, academia and professionals of planning, environment, architecture, transport engineering, chemistry, policy and private sector.

Impact, lessons of benefits and challenges from projects and programs:
Representatives from national and local governments will share stories from policies and benefits of healthy and age-friendly cities design and implementation practices. Community representatives and public health officials will share best practice cases of healthy and age-friendly cities and explain direct and indirect benefits for health.

Replication and scaling up:
ADB, WHO and the event partners and participants will likely agree on the challenges cities currently face including health and age-inclusiion, while recognizing the urgent need to transform cities and urban spaces to make them healthier and more community-friendly, learning from the cases presented. The event may share the view that efforts are needed, lay out key bottlenecks and obstacles that would need to be overcome, and consider avenues for initial action.

The challenge and solutions:
Environmental pollution, lack of green spaces and prevailing predominance of more developed cities to cater to the needs of cars and promoting related behavior to walk and cycle less are a challenge to public health. There are direct and indirect links of unhealthy urban patterns and environments to incidents of various forms of non-communicable diseases. WHO promoted healthy cities and developed good practices principles applied in Europe and around the world. Age-friendly cities ensure elderly and physically challenged people can get access and move safely in cities, public transport and buildings and private housing. Children safety and children-friendly cities are critical for healthy development of the next generation. And integrating all three will create many co-benefits. compared to the social and health benefits. In Asia, Singapore, Japan and Korea have been spearheading development and now the PRC with its Healthy China 2030 program.