Abstract
COVID-19 alerts urban planners and cities more broadly to invest in the planning of healthy cities, healthy environments for healthy people. The pandemic and response with lockdowns in almost every country shows that if cities cannot rely on a strong global and local health system, they will have extreme difficulties to continue to attract citizens, economic investment and innovation. So the COVID-19 pandemic is for urban planners a crisis not to be wasted, to accelerate bold thinking and to support governments in developing urban health as a major policy area in the daily management and planning of cities. We need to do this with experts in the health sector, by bridging the strong science and evidence-based approach they have with the strong area-based instruments that urban planners have. But also beyond COVID-19 it is high tide to walk back on an important historical line of urban planning and seek more connection with the social, health and welfare sector: to focus on people-centred planning, emphasize the space as a major determinant of health and create resilience amongst cities and their citizens for daily healthy behaviours and for well-prepared response in exceptional situations. UN-Habitat and WHO are planning the launch of a major ’Sourcebook on Integrating Health into Urban and Territorial Planning’ next months. This sourcebook is an opportunity to disseminate at the ISOCARP World congress, where-as the gathering of many global urban planners is also an opportunity to provide a training course, to make participants familiar with the source-book in depth and to give feedback on how to translate this into the context of their own city or in their own professional life (academic, practitioner, policy). A half day training session by ISOCARP Community of Practice on Urban Health, ISUH, WHO and UN-Habitat, with the following format: • Introduction Sourcebook on Integrating Health into Urban and Territorial Planning • Presentation case studies • Workshop with breakout sessions • Capacity development package of tools The aimed outcome of the training session is to provide the participant urban planners with the knowledge and the technical tools on the why, what and how to integrate health into Urban and Territorial Planning. Participants should feel inspired and comforted after the workshop to lead on this topic in their professional environment, by training further their staff, by proposing innovative approaches to their clients and partners, by elaborating guidance and policies in a city or national level. In dialogue with WHO, UN-Habitat, ISOCARP, this training can also be the start of more structural training cycle for urban planners.
