APPLICATION PROCESS
AND REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
APPLICATION SUBMISSION
In this initial step, a prospective city can show their interest and intention to be part of the network by submitting the following documents.
These documents help the city understand their urban health situation and pre-assess that they will be qualified for designation as a network member.
| WHO-SEARO and the Regional Lab will be responsible for screening of application in this initial step using the designation criteria |
| The screening panel will notify applicants of the review completion. If there are any incomplete documents or requests for any additional documents, the application will be sent back to the applicants for completion. |
| Upon completion of all required documents, the applicant city will be considered as a prospective healthy city member and will proceed to the next step to further complete their city health profile and city health development plan. |
The interested city submits the required application documents.
PROFILING HEALTHY CITY & URBAN GOVERNANCE
A prospective city member should complete their City Health Profile and City Health Development plan within six months after acceptance of their application. A prospective city member may consult the Regional Lab on how to complete the following documents.
1 | Form 2-A: City’s health profile | This document consists of required and optional additional information. To become designated as a member of the network, the city should complete all required sections in the form. The City Health Profile (Form 2A) will be benchmarked based on the SEAR Healthy Cities Network Assessment Tool. |
2 | Form 2-B: City’s health development plan | A prospective city should have their initiative and commitment to tackle urban health issues in their city. Cities are encouraged to ensure that urban governance principles and theory of change are considered while developing the plan. WHO guidance will be provided along with nine domains of effective actions for healthy city. For a city to be accredited as a Healthy City, cities should work on at least two of the nine domains (including Domain 1). Additionally, the Toolkits for support Form 2B can be found here |
Following successful application submission, the city will be considered as a PROSPECTIVE HCN MEMBER
The prospective HCN member submits the detailed city health profile and development plan for review.
YES
NO
Resubmits documents within 6 months
DESIGNATION AS A MEMBER OF THE WHO REGIONAL HEALTHY CITIES NETWORK FOR SEAR
The Technical Expert Panel (TEP) will designate a Prospective Healthy City Member to become a member of the WHO Regional Healthy Cities Network for South-East Asia by using designation criteria, in agreement with WHO-SEARO and the Regional Lab. A prospective city member will receive notification by the Regional Lab.
| WHO-SEARO and the Regional Lab will be responsible for compiling all completed documents and endorsing potential candidate list to the Technical Expert Panel (TEP). |
| TEP will review and make the decision to designate the city as a member of the WHO Regional Healthy Cities Network for South-East Asia |
| A prospective city member’s city health profile which does not meet all the designation criteria may submit a solid development plan on how to improve the insufficient indicator(s). The reviewing committee will consider the plan to determine the designation. |
| A member of WHO Regional Healthy Cities Network for South-East Asia will be notified of opportunities for workshops, trainings, study visits, and/or networking with other cities across-countries/regions. |
| Member cities may request technical support to strengthen their capacity, guidance in identifying technical knowledge, or strategy to address health and its determinants in their locality from WHO-SEARO and technical partners in the network. |
| Member cities will maintain and update urban health situation, implementation of the healthy city actions plan, and progress evaluation annually. |
| The regional lab will stay connected with member cities to improve city health profile, city health development plan, and communication strategy to promote good practices in the network. |
| Scale up actions and incrementation of efforts are encouraged to demonstrate the results for health and well-being |
The Technical Expert Panel (TEP) reviews the city’s self-assessment health profile and development plan for a healthy city designation
The prospective HCN member achieves at least 13 baseline criteria and has a development plan for at least 2 of the 9 HC action domains.
YES
NO
Resubmits documents within 6 months
Designated as HEALTHY CITY
in WHO Regional Healthy Cities Network for South-East Asia
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AWARD
Continuously revises, improves, and reassesses the city’s health profile and development plan every 2 years
City meets additional criteria and scores
YES
NO
Revise the new city’s health profile and development plan
AWARDED CITY
Healthy Cities Network Application FAQs
General
For data that is not available at the city/district level, cities may indicate data at the lowest level of aggregation available (if data is available at the provincial level, it would be preferable to national level data. If unavailable, national data is ok).
We would additionally like to seek the city’s remarks on the degree of validity of these indicators: whether the data provided is representative of the city based on the city’s context, or whether it is likely to be higher/lower due to certain factors specific to the city
Proxy indicators work as well; the team may seek further details on these proxy indicators to map the indicators as best as possible.
If possible, raw data that the city possesses should be used to calculate according to the indicator. Alternatively, if it is not possible, you should provide the information during the application submission and remark to let the team know and find a collaborative solution.
By Section
What do the programmes refer to?
Answer:
This section refers to the decision-making arrangement and process (including different actors) to allocate budgets, determining how much funds would be allocated to the various city programmes/projects.
What if NOT ALL government data and information can be easily discovered? Can city response ‘Partly’ instead of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’
Answer: Yes, ‘Partly’ is ok.
What does accuracy, validity, and comparability refer to?
Answer:
Accuracy refers to the reliability of the data source, including updates on changes. For eg, the police publishes accurate data on crime rates on its website, but due to time taken to process data in the system, there might be a 2-5 month lag in data available.
Validity refers to how representative the information is for the city, as well as the various populations in the city. – If data is available only on the national or municipal level, it might be limited in validity for the city; alternatively, it might be very valid as the city context is highly similar to the nation’s context).
- City level data for e.g. healthcare access might be limited in validity for certain populations such as migrants and the disabled, due to certain barriers in access faced by these populations.
Comparability refers to how well the city fares in terms of data provision (in accuracy and validity, as well as other aspects such as ease of access etc) compared to other cities in the country. It can also include different sets/types of relevant data provided by different agencies in the city.
What does this ratio refer to?/What is the benchmark?
Answer:
This refers to the ratio of Data on socio-economic issues & determinants (sections 2-4)/Data on Health (section 5): All available government/city data
How do we benchmark the accessibility level?
Please refer to the SEAR Assessment Tool here.
Indicator 6.3: Open Data and Information: The openness of public information and data is important to the socio-economic values of urban society. It improves transparency, effectiveness, and the efficiency of public services. It helps foster public innovation as well.
- Level 0: Data is Non-existing or Existing with legal barriers
- Level 1: Data is Partially Accessible and Invalid
- Level 2: Data is Accessible and Valid, but with No Variety
- Level 3: Data is Accessible, Valid and with Variety
- Level 4: Data is Fully Accessible, Valid with Huge Variety
- Level 5: the available information/data are used publicly and enable the urban society engagement mechanism
What is the benchmark for this percentage? What if the actual number of existing records and documents is unknown?
Answer:
This was intended as a percentage against existing government/city records, to understand the degree to which city/state data is made open to the public. It is sufficient for the city to provide a gauge, with underlying principles of what documents/information is made open and which types are kept confidential for certain rationales.