Developing Healthy Communities’ Chief Executive, Erin McFeely, met recently with Derry City & Strabane District Health & Communities Committee to update them on the work of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network.

This meeting follows the Council’s endorsement of the Political Statement ‘Declaration of Healthy Cities for Building Forward Better’ in December which calls on the global community to adopt an economy of wellbeing and recognise the importance of cities’ roles in placemaking and planning, governance, and utilising and building on existing community assets.

Erin says, “As we start to plan to ‘Build Forward Better’ the Healthy Cities Framework will be critical.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that health and economy are intrinsically linked. We need an approach to recovery which embraces health and economy as two sides of the same coin and includes working together across our communities and with private, public and academic sectors. 

"We need to ensure that a holistic approach to health and wellbeing is at the cutting edge of our policy development going forward. The Healthy Cities approach enables conversations which bring together diverse interests from education to transport, business and environment, in our focus to ‘build forward’ from the current pandemic.”

See Derry City & Strabane District Health & Communities Committee

Later this year, the Healthy Cities team will be launching a new conference to help identify the priorities for the Derry City & Strabane District’s Healthy City project and to showcase some best practice examples of how a holistic approach can improve where we live and the health of the population.

Learn more about Derry Healthy Cities