How smart, safe or sustainable can a city be without a focus on the health of its citizens? Given the theme for the 8th World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty, was 'Smart, Safe and Sustainable Cities', Jeanne Spillane was curious to see to what extent this question would be explored.

Technology as a driver for change was a crosscutting thread of the WACAP conference in Dublin, in February 2013, and some of the plenary speakers touched on issues relating to health, as well as how technology can be used to address these issues.

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women, mentioned how fear of sexual harassment and violence is a part of being in public spaces for women, and how they need to be included in decision making processes - “Don't include women just because it's the right thing to do but because it's the smart thing to do”. Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat pointed out that sustainable development must include sustainable urbanisation, and this requires sound urban policies at national level, and sound planning at local government level.

Tom Arnold, then chief executive of Concern Worldwide, looked at global health in an urban context, describing the challenges faced by Concern in providing programmes with an urban focus, rather than the rural context in which they have traditionally operated. He highlighted a number of issues to which those who live in slums are particularly vulnerable, including increased disease transmission due to crowding, poor sanitation and hygiene, and food price fluctuations; with limited food production, the urban poor are reliant on markets and informal employment for cash and food. He also touched on some opportunities presented by the urban context, including how population density allows larger numbers to be reached as opposed to rural contexts, and that urban populations are often more tech-savvy.

However, other plenary speakers, although interesting, failed to focus on the importance of health issues in the context of urban poverty. They did however, raise a few thought provoking points, particularly when considering the tools we already have at our disposal to tackle problems of urban poverty. Dr. Jo Beall, Director of Education & Society with the British Council, referenced informality as a key characteristic of urban poverty, which results in increased vulnerability. Part of her solution was to stress the importance of policy: “Policy for cities can't be left to cities alone; national policy is critical”. Meanwhile, Carl Wright, Secretary General of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, opened with the distressing statistic that smoke from cooking stoves kills 1 person every 16 seconds. As he pointed out, we already have the technology to address this issue; it is a matter of making it affordable and available to those who need it.

Similarly, Vinay Venkatramen, stated that “we need to create innovative ways where technology can empower people”. As Co-Founder of Copenhagen Institution of Interactive Design, among the potential uses for technology that he highlighted was the healthcare-based solutions potential of nanotechnology.

Kostas Mallios of Intellectual Ventures presented high-tech solutions to health issues, including the development of a Mosquito Shootdown project and a Cold Chain Vaccine Preservation device. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and president of the Mary RobinsonFoundation – Climate Justice, stated that the idea of poverty prevention needs more focus and Carl Wright's (SG Commonwealth Local Government Forum) said that technology is crucial to any new development goals and that these should set social targets and recognise local government as a distinct partner.

In terms of addressing the question as to how smart, safe or sustainable a city can be without a focus on the health of its citizens, the plenary sessions lacked a focus on the health and wellbeing of individual citizens within cities or on how government policies need to be implemented to improve health. However, I think a number of the learning sessions raised many good questions and ideas. It is up to the Global Health Community to ensure, together with cities from around the world, that the Cities Pilot Against Poverty includes innovations to improve the health and wellbeing of citizens everywhere.

The 8th World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty (WACAP) conference, with more than 500 delegates from cities around the world, was held in Dublin on February 21st and 22nd, with the theme 'Smart, Safe and Sustainable Cities', writes Jeanne Spillane.

As a two-day conference, the initial reaction of many was evident in the question and answer session at the end of the first day. Participants questioned the purpose of the conference and displayed a level of frustration that it might end up being all talk, while failing to provide positive proposals on how to move forward. One participant from Nepal critiqued the lack of voices from the community, while there were also questions from Johannes Loh, of Asian Trends Monitoring, on the lack of focus on scaling up innovations, and from Dr Ian Clarke, Irish mayor of Makindye District Council in Kampala, on the tendency of such conferences to produce a tremendous amount of knowledge which fails to filter down to local government level.

While many might be frustrated with the idea of just another talking shop, with no concrete action results, I found WACAP to be a very engaging event that presented many thought-provoking points of view on urban poverty. Examples of how technology is already being used to address urban poverty, along with some concrete steps for positive action were also cited. Steps to address some of the critiques raised were put forward, though how well they will be implemented remains to be seen.

In his opening address, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Naoise O Muiri insisted the aim of the conference should be not just to talk but to act. In speaking with Peter Finnegan, Director of the Office of Economy and International Relations at Dublin City Council and one of the main event organisers, he acknowledged the need to translate learning from the conference into practice and that doing so is both a policy issue for government and a business opportunity for technology companies.

The two days produced a huge number of soundbites, including Dr Jo Beall's point that informality is a key characteristic of urban poverty, along with Irish Minister of State Joe Costello’s statement that the urban poor can often be statistically invisible. Adding to this, Peter Finnegan stated that 130 years after Edison invented the lightbulb, millions are still living in darkness, highlighting his recognition of the social dividend to economic progress and technological advancement.

One of the most interesting presentations was provided by Vinay Venkatramen, Designer and Co-Founder of Copenhagen Institution of Interactive Design. A highlight was his concept of a “silicon cottage industry”, defined as the use of simple everyday technologies, and electronic wastes and local tinkering talent to create technological solutions for global challenges. One example of this was a simple health diagnostic tool based on an alarm clock, which is being used by frontline healthcare workers in India to diagnose and treat patients.

During the two days, examples presented included the challenges and the technologies that are being used successfully to address them, with Sally Fegan-Wyles of UNITAR, stating, “What can I do is not the right question – we should be asking what needs to be done, who is best placed to do it and what can I do to help them?”

The biggest step towards putting solutions into practice came with the proposal by CityMart of a Cities Pilot to End Poverty. The concept is that cities participating in the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty put forward problems to which they are seeking solutions. Companies propose innovative solutions which will be trialed by individual cities and if successful will become part of a pilot project running simultaneously across a number of cities, with the aim of implementing sustainable solutions to issues of urban poverty.

In his opening address to WACAP, Ireland President Michael D. Higgins pointed out that dire poverty is exacerbated by gross inequalities and that eradicating poverty is one of the greatest moral and ethical challenges facing us today. Technology can be useful in addressing issues of inequality and sustainability, but only insofar as it is used as a tool to serve humanity, a means rather than an end. People must be at the heart of any solution. 

The message is clear: it is time for greater Innovation and greater focus on Implementation with an eye towards a positive and long-lasting Impact on health outcomes.

Join us in March 2013, for a meeting bringing together over 1,000 members from a variety of sectors and disciplines to examine the cutting edge issues in several areas:

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  Innovations and interventions to improve health conditions


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  Global Health Justice: Human Rights, ethics, governance and policy


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  Interactions and interconnectedness of government policy on health outcomes


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  Partnerships and capacity-building for education and research in global health


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  Role of the private sector: Embrace, engage, avoiding conflicts of interest


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  Determinants of culture change in education of practice


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  Training the global health workforce


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  Technology: Advancements, set-backs, implications and outcomes