This report very clearly demonstrates the important role that buildings and urbanisation in Commonwealth countries need to play both in terms of mitigating and adapting to climate change, plus the massive gap in capacity which exists to tackle the climate emergency that we are facing.
2.6.3 HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Dr David Howard, Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Development, University of Oxford. Co-Director, Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation, Kellogg College, Oxford Developing and building better cities is essential to achieve sustainable levels of health and well- being at local and global levels. The physical built environment is critical to urban living conditions, where access to safe drinking water, sanitation and drainage are vital for the health of concentrated human populations: one third of the world’s population does not have access to improved sanitation, and 775,000 or 1.4% of global deaths were due to unsafe urban sanitation in 2017. There is a continuing lack of professional capacity to maintain and generate appropriate built environments and urban infrastructure in many of the Commonwealth countries, which are rapidly urbanising. With significant urban floorspace and demographic growth expected over the next sixty years, Commonwealth countries remain highly vulnerable not only to the challenges of urbanisation, but to the extreme risks of climate change impact on health issues. Four main chronic, non-communicable diseases account for 60% of global morbidity and mortality: diabetes, respiratory disease, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. These diseases are a global crisis and still require a global response, despite affordable and cost-effective preventive measures being readily available. These measures can most effectively and most rapidly be applied in urban areas, a core component being to create a healthy built environment. Effective urban planning and design improves living conditions together with access to health and welfare services while moderating exposure to unhealthy environments. The density of the urban environment, in terms of buildings and people, continues to raise both positive and negative consequences for everyday city living. High densities have historically been seen as the cause of poor health, whereas increased density, when combined with mixed land use urban neighbourhoods, are regarded as a core component of sustainable urbanism, countering decades of urban sprawl. Urban density matters and will play an increasingly central role in the future economic, social, political and biophysical state of Commonwealth cities and their populations. Enhancing the capacity and capability of built environment professionals is key to addressing the relationships between health, well-being and the urban environment.
2.6.4 LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Lucy Slack, Deputy Secretary General, Commonwealth Local Government Forum This report provides sober reading for the public sector. Rapid urbanization coupled with the impacts of climate change and economic uncertainty means that many cities in the Commonwealth are not benefitting from the urbanization dividend which we have seen in the past. This is particularly marked in secondary cities (75% of the cities in the Commonwealth), where growth is happening faster, the infrastructure challenge is often greater, and the potential resource base is more limited. We know that built environment professionals are important partners in ensuring sustainable urbanization, and this survey highlights the worrying trend that there is often a corresponding lack of built environment professionals in countries where urbanization is happening fastest. Training professionals and encouraging more people into the sector is of course essential, but more strategically we must make sure that the policy, financing, and regulatory frameworks are in place too.
Survey of the Built Environment Professions in the Commonwealth
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