Initiative on Urban Governance for Health and Well-being in Bogota

Abstract

Rapid, unplanned urbanization is one of the significant ecological and human challenges of the 21st century. UN-Habitat predicts that, by 2050, nearly 70% of the world’s population will be living in cities, with disproportionate urban growth in low- and middle-income countries. The Region of the Americas is one of the most urbanized and unequal regions in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) Urban Governance for Health and Wellbeing initiative seeks to support local-level actions to promote good urban governance for health and well-being, emphasizing community participation. Urban governance for health and well-being refers to focused processes of interaction and subsequent decision-making to generate collective solutions to enhance health and well-being through co-creation practices, social change, and institutional engagement as part of whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches. The World Health Organization is working with five cities: Bogota (Colombia), Douala (Cameroon), Mexico City (Mexico), Khulna (Bangladesh), and Tunis (Tunisia) in the first phase. This brief aims to share the progress achieved until in Bogotá, Colombia in implementing the World Health Organization (WHO) Initiative on Urban Governance for Health and Well-being throughout the first phase. Bogotá is the capital of Colombia, and it constitutes 16.4% of the country's total urban population. It presents the context and principles of the global initiative, achievements in Bogotá, and the next steps. The target audience of this publication is city officials, national governments, and donors.