Strengthening the health lens in urban resilience frameworks

ABSTRACT

Health is an important element of city’s resilience to various types of risks and threats. While rapid urbanization and climate change constitute growing threats to population health in cities, multiple factors, including social, political, economic, etc., can shape their health and capacity to withstand and recover from the effects of contemporary challenges in urban areas. By reviewing current dominant resilience-based urban planning approaches and policies, this paper identifies issues related to the overlooking of the multi-dimensionality of health issues in urban areas, and to treating health impacts as merely a dividend of the implementation of such approaches rather than means and targets. It further emphasizes on the recent recognition that health should be the concern not only of the sector, but of all sectors and in all urban policies, before presenting a number of themes which, conjointly, can form a framework for reinforcing the health lens in resilience building of urban settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban resilience
• health
• HiAP
• urban systems

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lina Martinez

Lina Martinez is an associate professor of public policy and director of the observatory of public policies -POLIS at Universidad Icesi, Colombia. Bachelor in philosophy and literature, master in education and human development, master and Ph.D in public policy. Major interest and specialization in educational and social policy. Current research focused on informal economy, urban health policies, social mobility and life satisfaction. Her research is published in different journals of urban policy.

Esteban Leon

Esteban Leon has a background in economics, finance, shelter/housing and settlements program design and management, capacity building, as well as building construction and reconstruction projects in post-crisis situations and urban resilience building. He has been working for UN-Habitat since 2002. Among other tasks, he is the UN-Habitat representative for the Humanitarian Inter-Agency Standing Committee IASC, Chair of the IASC Reference Group on Meeting Humanitarian Challenges in Urban Areas, Chair of the Medellin Collaboration for Urban Resilience, the UN-Habitat focal point for the International Recovery Platform, the Inter-Agency Post Disaster Needs Assessment, and the Post Conflict Needs Assessment. He is also UN-Habitat’s global Focal point for the UN-International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Sozvin Al Youssef

Sozvin Al Youssef is an Urban Resilience specialist at UN-Habitat City Resilience Global Programme (CRGP) in Barcelona, Spain. Her work is focused on disaster risk reduction and governance in the field of urban resilience. She is a MSc. public policy student at the School of Policy and Social Sciences, University of Bath, United Kingdom, holds a master degree in urban design from Cardiff University, UK., and Bachelor degree in architecture from University of Sulaimani, Iraq.

Anna Katrina Karaan

Anna Katrina Karaan is an architect and urbanist focused on design and planning for inclusive and resilient built environments. She is currently engaged with UN-Habitat City Resilience Global Programme (CRGP) as an Urban Resilience Specialist, and affiliated with University of the Philippines College of Architecture as Senior Lecturer. She holds a postgraduate degree on urban planning and development from University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, and an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of the Philippines - Diliman.