Your Excellency Dr Ahmad Abdulwahab Al-Awadhi, Minister of Health of Kuwait,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to join you here today at Kuwait’s second conference on Healthy Cities. Our health is impacted by where we live, and how we live. Most of us live in cities. More than 60 per cent of the Arab population live in urban centres, so urban health matters. A Healthy City supports health and a good quality of life through access to health care, sanitation and hygiene. WHO’s global Healthy Cities programme has been active for more than 20 years, and our regional Healthy Cities network counts 121 cities in 15 countries. In Kuwait, 18 cities are a part of this network.