KAUNAS, Lithuania: Goals of Sustainable Development and Health 2020 Connected in the Practice of Healthy Cities and Healthy Regions

On 22-23 September 2016, the Lithuanian town of Kaunas hosted the 23^rd meeting of the Regions for Health Network. This association is the offshoot of the international Healthy Cities Network and its national associations, which will celebrate its 30^th anniversary next year.

Operating under the aegis of the World Health Organisation, both networks share similar objectives and working methods, which include e.g. systemic health promotion and concrete practical application in connection with sustainable development, promoting cooperation among various sectors and different levels of public administration, educational and training activities, sharing of good practices and evaluating impacts of particular projects. One of the conference themes was the discussion on greater cooperation and interconnecting ongoing or planned activities of both the networks.

Well-attended, the event brought together almost a hundred of participants from 23 countries – representatives of national bodies, regions, towns, professional institutions and organisations including many WHO representatives from various departments. One of the WHO delegates was Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe. The Czech Republic was represented by Alena Steflova, director of the WHO Country Office in Prague, and Jitka Bouskova from the National Healthy Cities Network. The delegates of the Czech Republic came up with a number of presentations on the topics of connecting the activities of both the networks, methodological cooperation regarding regional development, connection between the goals of sustainable development and Health 2020 priorities.

The two-day conference brought a vast array of interesting presentations that can be used as inspiration for Czech regions. One of them is the example from Wales, where they strongly focus on promotion of the Goals of sustainable development and the issues of Health 2020. To present their themes at national, regional and local levels, they use not only interesting infographics but also intense and long-term cooperation with target groups.                 Similarly, inspiration how to involve public in devising a health promotion strategy in the wider region can be drawn from the Trentino in Italy. Furthermore, another beneficial outcome of the conference was establishing contacts for further cooperation with the representatives of the federal state of Lower Austria, the Centre for Health and Development in Slovenia and the WHO Regional Office in Bonn where plenty of tools to assess the impact of the environment on citizens´ health are developed.  

In October, Healthy Cities Are Hosting Traditional Health Days Campaign

The traditional Health Days Campaign in Czech Republic celebrating healthy lifestyles took place mostly in the first half of October. The diversity of themes and involvement of expert partners in various towns make it one of the biggest events to promote healthy lifestyles in the Czech Republic.  

The main goal of Health Days campaign is to inform citizens in an interesting way about how to care for your health properly and prevent health problems, and at the same time, offer citizens activities which could contribute to their long-term physical and mental well-being.  

During the Health Days events, citizens will have the opportunity to have their bodily values measured for free (body weight, blood pressure, blood sugar etc.) or to have another medical examination or to obtain information as part of free counselling. The accompanying programme is devoted to all generations including children and the elderly.

Every year, the town halls of Healthy Cities host the Health Days campaign in cooperation with all its partners dealing with the issue of health regardless their field of action (NGOs, health care facilities, schools). 

A regularly updated list of events of municipalities and regions involved in the campaign can be found here: www.ZdravaMesta.cz/dzd. (just in Czech)

Notice for Healthy municipalities and regions: We would appreciate it if we could inform other towns and journalists of your activities. Be so kind as to load your activities related to the Health Days campaign through the Terminal. We thank you for your information.

Sustainable Development Gallery is being updated with Inspirations and Good Practices

It has been nine months since the Czech Healthy Cities Network launched a specialized online portal devoted to 11 sustainability topics called the SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GALLERY. Since then, the Gallery became a recognized and more and more visited information portal where interesting information from towns and municipalities can be found – examples of good practice and particular "brief inspirations", links to themes contained in strategies and policies, specialized sustainable development audits, contacts and links to other interesting domestic and foreign information sources.

The Gallery contains more than 2500 brief inspirations – major or minor inspirations and almost 300 examples of good practice and solutions comprising elements of innovation and new approaches and ideas. As a result, their compiling creates space and motivation for mutual learning from one another and sharing know-how and experience.

Moreover, the Gallery offers space for those who are interested in possibilities of evaluation or mutual comparison of towns in terms of sustainable development. Comparing sustainable development audits, which were prepared by particular towns in accordance with the Methodology for evaluating sustainable towns, enables every citizen to find out how their town fares in various areas of development in accordance with the Aalborg commitments.  

The Gallery of sustainable development is intended not only for the representatives of towns, cities and regions, but also for those who are interested in this issue and seek inspiration and practical information.

The topics that can be found in this gallery: Public administration and territorial development, Environment, Sustainable consumption and production, Transport and mobility, Health, Local economies, Education and training, Culture and leisure, Social environment, Agriculture and rural development, Global responsibility.

You can find us at: dobrapraxe.cz  

500 Thematic Strategic Documents in the Czech Database of Strategies

The number of strategies registered in the Czech national Database of Strategies reached a record number of 500 documents. Since its launch in November 2011, the Database has achieved more than 40,000 visits. During trial commenting on the document "Czech Republic 2030" through the Database, 385 of public comments were presented to the Government Office in August 2011. The number of visits increased fivefold in comparison to the average of visits in previous months.  

The Strategies Database is operated under the aegis of the Ministry for Regional Development. The database is administered by the National Healthy Cities Network at the platform of DataPlan system.

The Database of Strategies is an information system which helps to improve strategic management and planning at all levels of public administration in the Czech Republic. It can thematically and functionally connect strategic goal at various levels: both international, national – documents from ministries and national institutions, and local and regional.       

Moreover, the database can serve as a tool to create new documents and to monitor connection between strategic goals. For this reason, the Strategies database is used as a tool for cohesion policy of the Czech Republic in the implementation of 2014-2020 ESI funds programming period.

More at: https://www.databaze-strategie.cz

Czech Healthy Cities Network Conference on SUSTAINABLE CITY 2016, 1st December 2016

On 1^st December 2016, Czech Healthy Cities Network will host the 23^rd nationwide conference on SUSTAINABLE CITY 2016 at the Prague hotel Jalta. The conference will focus on sharing of best practices in municipalities, towns and regions, and the topics related to the quality of local authorities, public involvement, planning and management, and international cooperation.  The second day of the conference will follow with an expert seminar on quality management methods in towns and regions.

During this national presentation of the most advanced implementers of Local Agenda 21 quality method, there will be a formal ceremony at which prestigious awards will be given in the following categories:  

“Sustainable City”
“Systemically-managed City”
“Communicating City”
“Breakthrough of the Year”

The conference is held under the auspices of the Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. The conference will be attended and the awards will be handed out by the Minister for Regional Development Karla Slechtova, Minister for the Environment Richard Brabec and Vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies Jan Bartošek. The Minister of the Interior Milan Chovanec and other important representatives of major Czech institutions were invited too. The moderator of the conference will be Ales Cibulka. 

Open to all those interested in sustainable development, health and quality of life and systemic approach to these values under the conditions of the Czech public administration, the conference will be geared towards the following themes:  • open local authority • smart city • planning with citizens • urbanism • sustainable financial, strategic and process management • renewable resources and savings • adaptation to climate changes • innovation and interesting technological solutions • health promotion awareness campaigns • involvement of youth and children • global responsibility.

The detailed info HERE