Dear Editor,
TWO weeks ago, Her Worship Mayor of Georgetown, Mrs. Patricia Chase-Green, and Town Clerk Royston King attended a special conference — the 9th Global Conference of Health Promotion — in Shanghai, China.

The objectives of the conference were to provide guidance to member states on how to reflect promoting Health International’s Sustainable Development Goals’ responses; how to accelerate progress and sustainable development targets; and how to accelerate progress and STG targets to exchange national experiences in: (a) Strengthening good governance for health through action across government sectors; (b) Broadening and strengthening social mobilization; (c) Promoting health literacy to highlight the health sector’s changing roles as the key advocate for promoting health; and (d) To highlight the crucial role that cities and municipal leaders, especially mayors, play in promoting health (creating healthy cities) in the context of an increasingly organized urban population.

Her Worship represented not only Georgetown, but the region of the Caribbean, and was invited to address a special forum which included Liu Yandong, Vice Premier of China; Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO; Wang Guoquiang, Vice-Minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China; Yang Xiong, Mayor of Shanghai; Roberto Morales, Minister of Health in Cuba; Chen Zhu, Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China; Zhang Hongming, Mayor of Hangzhou, China; Shin Yong-soo, Regional Director for the Western Pacific, WHO; mayors and other government and municipal officials.

Part of the address read: “The conference, and in particular the Mayors’ Forum, offers us a unique opportunity to exchange experiences, ideas and realities of integrating health in all polices to create (a) better future (for) our citizens.
Our realities are vastly different, but some of the challenges we face in addressing the determinants of health in our everyday work are similar, and we can learn from one another. As urbanization keeps increasing, our role as local and sub-national leaders becomes more and more paramount in promoting health. As mayors, we are key players and driving forces in creating conditions and settings for our citizens to live healthy lives. A healthy city makes for a healthy citizen. Through the promotion of community engagement and making decisions that consider the health impacts of our constituents, we create not only healthy settings, but promote health empowerment of our citizens.

“I would like to extend my sincere ‘thank you’ to the local Government of Shanghai, as well as the Government of the People’s Republic of China, for welcoming us to their home and opening up space for dialogue mayor–to-mayor on the importance of promoting health through the Shanghai Mayors’ Consensus on Healthy Cities.”

Also, Her Worship has agreed to sit on a special coordinating committee of Latin America and Caribbean Mayors, to advance the achievements made at the conference and to promote healthy cities in the Caribbean through establishing linkages among those states and cities, and mobilising resources.

Regards,
ROYSTON KING
Town Clerk
City of Georgetown