The capital City of Prague is the new member of Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic

With its entry to Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic, the capital City of Prague joined the European capitals that follow the international WHO Healthy City Project. Now, Prague is able to support the activities of many of its city districts that had already joined the Healthy City and local Agenda 21 programmes.

The interest in HCCZ membership also increases in other large cities and regions. The Moravian-Silesian Region and another county town, the statutory City of Liberec also recently joined the association. HCCZ currently have 112 members, including Prague, five regions and a number of large cities. Overall, the member cities, municipalities and regions represent more than one half of the Czech Republic (56 percent of population).

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The collaboration in the field of health support or in the social area has been confirmed by agreement. The Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic have new official partners

The Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic not only build on sharing of best practice of its members and other municipalities and regions, but also on active collaboration with a number of professional partners, whether ministries, their professional organisations, university workplaces, nationwide non-profit organisations and other expert organisations. The association concludes agreements or memoranda on mutual collaboration on the national and international levels with the most significant of these partners.

The latest confirmed collaboration so far was the long anticipated agreement with the Ministry of Health, which is one of key partners of the association and its members. The agreement mentions cooperation of both institutions in the field of health support on the local and regional levels, sharing of data and information to evaluate health condition of the inhabitants or sharing and spreading of information related with the issue of health support on the local, regional and national levels. "The collaboration with the Ministry of Health has been taking place before, despite this fact we are glad that the agreement has been concluded, thus confirming the importance of Healthy Cities and Regions, especially for the issue of health support on the local and regional levels. I believe that the collaboration will be thus further reinforced and will be beneficial both for our members while also being perceived as an opportunity of how to get feedback for the ministry and its organisations", added Petr Svec, HCCZ Director.

In June 2013, a memorandum on collaboration was also signed with Agency for Social Inclusion, which forms a part of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. "On behalf of the agency, we are able to bring regular good practice examples from the locations where this problem has been successfully alleviated with participation of representatives of cities, schools, non-profit organisations, police and the public to the one hundred Healthy Cities members who intend to deal with social exclusion of a part of inhabitants. On the other hand, the Healthy Cities can introduce examples of how to engage the public in the processes that lead to sustainable development, health and quality life in the cities and municipalities," as Martin Šimáček, director of Agency for Social Inclusion, describes the anticipations from the concluded partnership.

Despite the absence of financial engagement, these types of cooperation contracts commit both parties to coordinate activities and mutually collaborate in the given topic. Other HCCZ official partners can be found at this link www.ZdravaMesta.cz/partneri.

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20th Conference celebrating the anniversary of Czech Healthy Cities to take place in September 2013 in Olomouc