KUWAIT: Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development Dr Khaled Al-Mahdi said on Tuesday that the council, in cooperation with the Ministries of Health and Social Affairs, is seeking sustainable funding for the (Healthy Cities) initiative. The initiative aims to turn areas of Kuwait into disease free cities with a high-level hygiene.

The mechanism in this initiative is based on nine fundamentals that include eighty standards, indicating that in order to obtain accreditation from the World Health Organization, the Healthy City must fulfill at least 80 percent of these standards. He noted that one of these Essential elements is to provide a sustainable financial resource for the city, therefore it enables planning and implementation of various programs.

He indicated that the presence of a sustainable financial resource for healthy cities will contribute predominantly to the integrity of the work in the Health City system and lead to reaching the standards of the Healthy City.

The Healthy Cities initiative was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1986 and aims to improve the health status of the population in urban cities around the world, raise the level of health and environmental services, and create living conditions that lead to a life free from chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. - KUNA