Córdoba in Argentina, Fortaleza in Brazil and Manchester in the UK, picked up accolades at a healthy urban summit hosting the UN World Health Organization (WHO), Bloomberg Philanthropies and Vital Strategies.
The Argentine city won recognition for its policy to eliminate sugary and artificially sweetened beverages – along with ultra -processed foods – from all schools in 2026. So far, 15,000 elementary school children in 26 schools have benefited.
“We see a lot of progress in local leadership and mayors from all over the world taking the fight and trying to lower prices on the world’s greatest murderersHeart disease, diabetes, cancers and respiratory diseases, ”said Jaimie Guerra, communications manager at WHO.
The Paris summit brought together mayors and officials from 61 cities around the world to discuss how to build healthier local communities.
WHO HERFORY Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated the three winners he said was a model for other cities to follow, at the head of the fight against non-infectious diseases and injuries.
Non-infectious diseases include heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease. They are responsible for the vast majority of fatal accidents, said UN’s special envoy of climate combination and solutions, Michael Bloomberg, who was also at the summit in France.
The diseases “are responsible for more than 80 percent of all deaths globally, but the good news is they can be prevented”said Mr. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies and the three-time former mayor of New York City.
Breathing easier
Winning Fortaleza Established its first legal framework for air quality monitoring in an attempt to limit air pollution and help people breathe more easily.
By 2023, the Brazilian city authorities adopted a decree that ensured local monitoring of air pollutants and installation of cheap sensors for better data collection.
Larger Manchester Meanwhile, has continued its efforts to limit tobacco use and introduce its first smoke -free 6.5 hectare park.
The northern English city also launched a smoke -free tool kit for hospitals and develops a wider tool set to support organizations to create tobacco -free space.
To tackle the world’s greatest murderers
Participants in the Healthy Cities summit included representatives from Dhaka in Bangladesh, Helsinki in Finland, the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, Lusaka in Zambia and Quito in Ecuador.
The participating city centers are part of the Partnership for Healthy Cities, a global network of 74 cities launched in 2017 to prevent non-infectious diseases and injuries through politics and programs.
“These programs really make a difference,” WHO’s Ms. Guerra. “And in the partnership, most of the cities are a million plus people. In total, it covers more than 300 million people.”
