Regional Meeting in Africa on Urban HEART
The WHO Kobe Centre co-hosted a meeting of seven countries from WHO’s Africa region in Ezulwini, Swaziland, on October 14-16, 2015. The seven countries included the hosts Swaziland, Algeria, Burundi, Mali, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The main objective of the meeting was to take stock of progress made in introducing or applying Urban HEART in the field, and share information on experiences in different countries. WHO’s role was to provide further guidance and support to countries for utilising the tool in order to catalyse efforts to improving health equity in urban areas. During the meeting, participants were also taken on a field visit to experience and critique progress made with interventions based on Urban HEART in Matsapha Municipality, Swaziland.
Urban HEART is a tool developed by the WHO Kobe Centre to support cities and countries assess and respond to health inequities at the local level. The tool has been used in more than 100 cities in 53 high, middle- and low-income countries till date. This meeting was the fourth major Urban HEART workshop or consultation in 2015. Previous meetings in 2015 have been held in Kobe (Japan), Tehran (Iran), and Seoul (Republic of Korea).