In 2015 National Healthy Cities Network increased its membership by a record number

The National Healthy Cities Network has grown significantly recently. This is a record increase in interest in membership in the association, the highest ever since 2006. In 2015, the association increased its membership by 16 cities, municipalities towns and municipal districts, including membership of other two municipalities, which will be effective from January 2016.

Czech Healthy Cities and Regions were joined by the following municipalities: Benesov nad Ploucnici, Brezina u Brna, Humpolec, Krasno, Marianske Lazne, Nový Jicin, Prague 8, Prague 12, Rokytnice nad Jizerou, Rosice u Brna, Sazava, Telnice, Ustek, Valasské Klobouky, Vitkov, Vresina, Vyzlovka and Zbyslavice.

At the end of the year, the number of the association´s members amounted to 129 in total with a regional influence over 2642 cities and municipalities with 6,074 million of inhabitants living there (57 % of the population in the Czech republic).

We heartily welcome all new members. We believe that exchange of information will be of mutual benefit and that both the new and existing members will be interested in active cooperation and sharing of experience. To this end, in 2016, the Czech Healthy Cities National Network will provide space and possibilities of meeting, joint consultations, including possibilities to finance members’ projects and specific activities, and good practice exchange.

The list of all Healthy Cities members is available HERE.

International commitments strengthen the importance of Healthy Cities in the Czech Republic and abroad

The year of 2015 commemorated the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic embody highly successful fulfilment of programmes implemented under the auspices of this international community. As a matter of fact, the Healthy City Project was set up on the initiative of the United Nations through the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In 2015, Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic earned important international recognition at the UN General Assembly for the implementation of Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. At the occasion, the representatives of the Government Office of the Czech Republic presented the experience of Healthy Cities and the implementation of Local Agenda 21. Currently, the National Healthy Cities Network is actively engaged in promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the local level and is involved in transposing Agenda 2030 in the conditions of the Czech Republic.

Last year in August, Czech Healthy Cities became a signatory to an important document “Quality Charter” thus joining a great number of institutions and companies declaring in this way that quality promotion is their mission. Quality Charter of the Czech Republic is a follow-up to European Quality Charter, whereby the European Union declared its beliefs that quality is a determining factor of success in global world economy. The signatories to the Charter, amounting to more than a hundred in the Czech Republic in 2015, are companies, businesses, universities, ministries and municipal entities – cities, towns or Prague municipal districts, or professional associations in the field of public administration.

In September 2015, Czech Healthy Cities adopted the United Nations Global Compact Principles – the largest corporate sustainability platform worldwide under the aegis of the UN. The network totals more than 13, 000 organizations (of which 8 500 businesses) in 165 countries worldwide. This platform is represented in each country by national networks. The host organisation of the UN Global Compact in the Czech Republic is the Association of Social Responsibility. Therefore, Czech Healthy Cities joined this association as well.

Opening of the Sustainable Development Gallery

At the end of 2015, we launched a specialized online database of the Czech Healthy Cities Network providing information about 11 topics of sustainable development entitled “SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GALLERY”. Here you will find interesting inspirations from cities and municipalities – best practice examples and short inspirations, references to themes included in strategies and documents, specialized sustainable development audits – for the present a trial basis from Litomerice and Chrudim, and contacts and links to other Czech and foreign information sources. Themes to be found in the Gallery: Public administration and regional development, Environment, Sustainable consumption and Production, Transport and Mobility, Health, Local economy, Education and Training, Culture and leisure, Social environment, Agriculture and the countryside, Global responsibility.

The year 2016 will be, besides other, also devoted to linking these topics to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030.

DRAW INSPIRATION dobrapraxe.cz

Supported by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union.

Healthy City Public Forum provides innovative methods for public participation in municipal events

Healthy Cities, Towns and Regions hold regular meetings for its citizens where people can discuss the most burning issues regarding the place where they live. In 2015, the Healthy City Public Forum was held at 55 different places with an overall attendance of nearly 4600 citizens. Youth Forums are also very popular giving pupils and students an opportunity to discuss municipal development. The outcomes of these public encounters are directly forwarded, as in the case of “adult” forums, to a city or municipal council where they are further dealt with.

In 2015, Czech Healthy Cities offered its members a new service called “Emotional maps”, which are created during such public meetings. Emotional maps are prepared in cooperation with Palacky University Olomouc. They are based on GeoParticipation concept, which means the use of spatial tools in citizen participation in decision-making processes that regard them. Each city or region will receive its emotional map created during a Public Forum in a standard office format or as a GIS layer. For the next year, Healthy Cities is preparing its own map server comprising a compilation of these maps. It will be possible to interconnect them with other information which is important for planning and monitoring situations in cities, e.g. in Healthy Cities DataPlan. Emotional maps have been tested so far in Healthy Cities such as Chrudim, Jihlava, Ricany, Trebon or the Prague municipal district – Horni Pocernice. Wherever it was presented, this new activity aroused interest of public meeting participants. Furthermore, this service will be offered free of charge by Czech Healthy Cities to its members in 2016.

In 2015, Healthy Cities gradually started to use Democracy 2.1 (D21) voting system developed by a team of Karel Janecek Anticorruption Foundation. The system enables high-quality decision-making about crucial issues of development in favour of the public and it handles favourable and unfavourable responses in an innovative way. The following Healthy Cities took part in the voting: Litomerice, Marianske Lazne and Ricany. In 2016, dozens of other applications are in the pipeline – free of charge for Healthy Cities members.

Information about past and future venues of Healthy Cities Public Fora and other related documents can be found at ZdravaMesta.cz/forum.

Activities are carried out with financial support of the State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic and the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic.

In 2015 Healthy Cities won a range of major awards

In early December 2015, at the conference held by Healthy Cities in Kaiserstein Palace in Prague, the representatives of Healthy Cities of Chrudim, Litomerice, Vsetin, Koprivnice and Healthy Municipality of Krizanky received the well-deserved awards for attaining the highest places in the Local Agenda 21 (LA21). Healthy Cities members thus proved their qualities again in many areas such as authorities open to public, planning with citizens, sustainable financial management, strategic planning, renewable energy sources and savings, sustainable mobility, innovation and interesting technological solutions, health promotion campaigns, child and youth involvement, global responsibility etc. In 2015, Litomerice Healthy City was the second city that obtained the highest category “A” of LA21 criteria. Chrudim Healthy City also retained the highest LA21 category.

Healthy Cities also succeeded in the programmes called “Czech National Quality Award” and “Czech National Award for Social Responsibility”. The winner of the Czech National Quality Award based on CAF model was Healthy Municipal District Prague 18, the municipal district office of Prague 18, which can boast the title of “Perspective Organisation”. The winner of Czech National Award for Social Responsibility in the public sector in the category of public administration was Liberec Healthy Region, Regional Office of Liberec Region.

The competition of Family Friendly Municipality promoting family-friendly activities at the local government level in the category of settlements from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants in 2014 was won by Healthy City of Trebic. Healthy Municipality of Veznice was placed second in the category of towns and municipalities up to 1,000 inhabitants.

In 2015, Kromeriz Healthy City of met all criteria for awarding the title of Fairtrade City, and therefore joined hundreds of other cities worldwide promoting fair trade that helps people from developing countries earn their living by their own work under decent conditions. To date, these criteria were fulfilled by nine Czech cities, including other Healthy Cities members: Hodonin, Chrudim, Litomerice, Mlada Boleslav, Trebic and Vsetin.

Healthy City of Mseno succeeded in this year´s edition of the competition called “Routes through Cities” focused on traffic calming. In this competition, hosted by the Partnership Foundation, Healthy City of Mseno won the first prize in the category of line solutions. The mayor of Mseno, M. Mach, was awarded as well in the competition called ”Local Politician of 2015” in the category of Ecological project (upgrading energy effectivity in school buildings).

We congratulate all the above-mentioned parties and also many other award-winning parties and we wish them and other cities, towns and regions every success in the following years.