ICUH - Day Three Round Up
On the beginning of the 1st day of the scientific part of the ICUH conference, opened by Kenya’s Minister for Planning, Mr. Wycliffe Oparanya, speaker after speaker emphasized on the need for concerted effort from donors, civil society, governments and the community to make a difference in urban health.
Immunization among other health preventive measures will be wasted resource if countries do not focus on the overall aspect of providing services to the urban population. Access to living quarters, sanitation, and security of tenure are necessary to deal with diseases as urban populations continue to grow.
Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka the Executive Director of UN-Habitat delivering her speech at the ongoing 8th annual urban health conference at KICC, noted that HIV/AIDs is spreading rapidly in the slums because of the deplorable living quarters and overcrowding.
Addressing the over 1000 participants from over 40 countries world wide, Tibaijuka said that Vision 2030 is no vision if it does not focus on the health of people. “ The physical configuration and layout of cities, housing conditions, access to services, processes of livelihood, modes of governance, and the overall ambiance of cities have now become the key determinants of human life.”
The conference which is organized by the International Society on Urban Health (ISUH) together with the Kenyan government and the African Population Health and Research Centre (APHRC), is being held in Africa for the first time, realizing the unique challenges that face developing countries as they rapidly urbanization.
Minister for Planning and Vision 2030, Mr. Wycliffe Oparanya while opening the conference, acknowledged the challenges that African countries and especially Kenya faces, but highlighted the fact that Kenya’s vision 2030 for the Population, Urbanization and housing sector aims to address the resultant challenges faced in social, economic and political cycles, constituting an important framework for the Government’s commitment to improve the welfare of her people.
He called for leadership in government, civil society and in business and to move beyond class and tribes to embrace commitment to building better future in cities, where most people live. “ It’s the government’s task to move the predicament that rural-urban migration poses of poor water, poor sanitation, mediocre health services, insecure land tenure, high infant and under five mortality ad to turn them into problems that can be saved.
Mrs.Tibaijuka received this years’ ISUH humanitarian award for her efforts and commitment to improve housing in informal settlements. Accepting the award which was handed over by Oparanya, she said that addressing challenges of urban health goes beyond the narrow confines of disease focus. “ It draws attention to systems of planning, management, governance, and on how resources are deployed and accessed”
Ms Monica Kerrigan, Senior Programme Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while giving her key note presentation on how to improve reproductive health care for the urban poor, noted that contraceptive use in sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest in the world especially so in slum areas.
With 71% of Kenyans being the urban poor, the challenges in urban health are enormous from immunization, access to reproductive health services, communicable diseases, nutritional deficiencies and pollution among others.
As the conference closes tomorrow, experts in Kenya and other African countries are sharing information on innovative and practical ways of dealing with the challenges posed by future population growth in urban areas and urban slums.
Today participants will discuss more on the specifics of urban planning with the keynote presentations being made by Prof. Elliot Sclar from the Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia University’s Earth Institute USA.
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