The Healthy Municipalities, Cities and Communities Movement is consolidating its growth in the Region. The event, attended by a large participation of female mayors, launched the Regional Criteria for Healthy Municipalities and ended with the launch of the Huechuraba Declaration.

Huechuraba, Chile, November 6, 2023 – The Movement of Healthy Municipalities, Cities and Communities (MCCS) of the Americas continues to take firm steps in its consolidation in the region. The VI Meeting of Mayors for Healthy Municipalities, co-organized by PAHO, brought together more than 150 participants from 18 countries in Chile, including mayors and representatives of networks of healthy municipalities in the Americas.

These data reflect a notable increase both in the volume of participation and in terms of countries represented at the V Meeting held in 2022 in Panama. Also noteworthy was the strong participation of female mayors, who represented around a third of the participating mayors.

During the VI Meeting, held in Huechuraba, Chile, on November 2 and 3, the Regional Criteria for Healthy Municipalities, Cities and Communities in the Americas were also launched, “an important step in consolidating a road map common for local governments in the Americas. region and an important step in the process of collective building of the movement,” said Pilar Campos, PAHO regional health promotion advisor.

At the same time, the progress and achievements of the Regional Movement Action Plan in 2024 were shared and a set of significant experiences of healthy municipalities, cities and communities in local governance for health and well-being were shared. been presented, which were recognized in 2024. Call launched by PAHO on this subject.

For his part, the director of the Department of Social and Environmental Determinants for Health Equity, Gerry Eijkemans, highlighted the “strengthening” of this Movement led by mayors, a “global and integrating” regional platform of local governments that exists for over 30 years. development, providing an excellent opportunity to build strategic alliances and partnerships with other stakeholders engaged in health and well-being.

The head of the Health Promotion Unit, Orielle Solar, highly appreciated “the wealth of significant experiences presented by healthy municipalities in the region”.

30 criteria to promote health, well-being and equity

The MCCS regional criteria are expressed in a document that includes 30 common criteria to move forward jointly in the region and strengthen and promote health, well-being and equity in the field of municipal management.

The criteria are divided into six policy action areas:

1. Strengthen local leadership and governance for the health and well-being of all,
2. Promote intersectoral action for health and well-being,
3. Promote community participation, empowerment and social cohesion,
4. Guarantee access for the entire population to basic health and well-being services,
5. Promote healthy, inclusive and safe environments
6. Strengthen capacities for managing health emergencies and disasters.

The proposal to establish regional criteria arose from the mayors during the III Meeting (Paipa, Colombia, 2019). Since then, with the support of PAHO technical assistance, we have worked collectively through a consultative process in which local governments, networks of healthy municipalities, ministries of health, academia and the civil society were involved, among other sectors.

Huechuraba Declaration

The VIth Meeting ended with the Huechuraba Declaration, which was agreed and signed by the participating mayors. This document presents local governments as “key actors in comprehensively addressing the social determinants of health through the implementation of healthy, intersectoral and participatory public policies that promote the health, well-being and equity of populations”.

In the declaration, the mayors commit to the following points:

1. strengthening local governance for health and well-being, prioritizing equity, social participation and intersectorality as a central part of the policy agenda;
2. consolidate the regional Movement of Healthy Municipalities, Cities and Communities by incorporating a greater number of local governments committed to building healthy municipalities;
3. strengthen networks of healthy municipalities at national and subnational levels and facilitate their coordination with the Regional Movement;
4. promote and consolidate participation in the Liaison Tables of Ministries of Health and in the Networks of Healthy Municipalities in the Region of the Americas;
5. promote the implementation of the Regional Criteria for Healthy Municipalities, Cities and Communities in the Americas, in harmony with national, subnational and local planning strategic frameworks;
6. promote the strengthening, capacity building and exchange of experiences of healthy municipalities among local governments;
7. progress towards the sustainability of healthy municipalities, cities and communities;
8. integrate the intercultural approach into the Healthy Municipalities, Cities and Communities Movement to promote and guarantee the active inclusion of indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities, and thus preserve their cultural heritage and enrich this regional platform.

At the Huechuraba event, six of the 30 significant experiences of healthy municipalities recognized in the call launched by PAHO in July and August were presented. These are the municipal experiences of Santa Lucía (Argentina), Sairé (Brazil), Santander de Quilichao and Pasto (Colombia), Quito (Ecuador) and San José de los Campos Limpios de Tapua (Paraguay). These local experiences were selected from a total of 195 received, of which 171 corresponding to 13 countries in the Region were evaluated.

Working session with mayors

During the VI Meeting, a working session was organized for the mayors of the region belonging to the MCCS Movement and another, organized by the PAHO Subregional Office of Central America, to address the issue of migration and health. Concerning the first, it was developed within the framework of the Canadian IHWAG project (Improving the Health of Women, Adolescents and Girls, for its acronym in English) and there was a panel in which advisors from four countries of this project participated. : Josefina Velásquez Correa, president of the Association of Councilors and Mayors of Bolivia (ACOBOL); Lucy Amparo Guzmán González, Mayor of Santander de Quilichao (Colombia); Gail Ann Persaud, Deputy Mayor of Bartica, Guyana; Carmen Alicia Paz Rodríguez, mayor of San Nicolás and president of the Gender Commission of the Association of Municipalities of Honduras (AMHON).

During this session, a rich discussion took place between the mayors on the attributes that make the difference when doing politics, the challenges of conciliation or loss of privacy, and how readings on the private lives are very different between women and men. and a sexist society.

The value of the ACOBOL and AMHON associations was highlighted to empower future councilors and mayors and the main conclusions were the key role of mayors in the implementation of healthy public policies, leadership with new key attributes and a different way of doing things. essential to improve the health of women, girls and adolescents through both empathy, concern, sensitivity to social issues, active listening, closeness and trust, as well as understanding of care and priority approach to health needs.

Mayors and political decision-makers act as references for future generations of women who see that it is possible and necessary to occupy political decision-making spaces.