WEF Article: Covid-19 impacts urban planning

The Covid 19 pandemic, explains epidemiologist Tolullah Oni in a recent technical article on the WEF site , has raised awareness of the significant deficiencies in urban infrastructure. The lack of attention paid to the interactions between human health, natural systems and the urban environment is also becoming more apparent, she adds. Although the health of the planet is determined by these factors.

On the "vulnerable" infrastructure 

The focus has been too much on securing wealth and food, which has led to greater motorization in cities, without regard for the need to provide space for physical activity in clean air. The way houses have been built so far increases the risk of disease transmission, he said. "We can and must do better by launching a bold new investment program for the health of the planet," writes Tolullah Oni, Clinical Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town.

The epidemiologist from the University of Cambridge calls for a global Marshall Plan for planetary health. She is one of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum.

Concrete initiatives 

At best, Oni believes, the failure to decisively address the negative impacts of today's urban environment represents a missed opportunity to enable healthy communities. At worst, it actively contributes to disease risk and transmission. She cites increased corona mortality among the poorer population in the UK as an example of negative impacts of failed housing policies.

Although several global philanthropic initiatives have certainly tried, even with success, to improve urban health, today's flawed systems need more fundamental change. Says Oni: "Simply put, the world needs a new Marshall Plan for planetary health - much like a New Deal for post-pandemic recovery."

Governments and sectors 

Governments as well as the private sector are challenged, policy makers need to act, and better health and resilience of people, for example in big cities, should not be seen as a consequence of their economic successes, but as a goal of new urban planning from the outset. Such approaches already exist, he said, from Bhutan in the Himalayas with its happiness factor in the measurement of gross domestic product to New Zealand, where a so-called wellbeing economy is being pursued.

"This is where multilateral development finance institutions (MDFIs), such as the African and Asian Development Banks, could help," Oni writes. As noncommercial organizations that provide capital for economic development projects in a wide range of member countries, such institutions are uniquely positioned to advance the Marshall Plan-style scheme through conditionality in lending and funding, he says.

To the article in English by Tolullah Oni on the site of the World Economic Forum