Mayor Commits to “Healthy Dhaka”

IID’s 9^th Policy Breakfast was held on Thursday the 28^th in Dhaka city. The event was organized in partnership with icddr,b and supported by European Union.

The topic was Urban Primary Health Care and the agenda for discussion included the following 3 questions:

• Who are the urban poor and what their health needs?
• What kind of primary health care services are necessary?
• What is the best way to reach the urban poor?

Notable participants included Mr. Annisul Huq, Honorable Mayor, Dhaka North City Corporation, Dr. Kaosar Afsana Director, Health Nutrition and Population, BRAC, Dr. A. M. Zakir Hussain, Senior Consultant & Ex-Director, Primary Health Care, DGHS, and Dr. Malabika Sarkar from James P. Grant School of Public Health. Participants introduced numerous concerns, questions, and suggestions to the Mayor, who addressed each of those individually and asked for actionable recommendations from participants wherever possible.

For more photos of this event click here

To know about our previous Policy Breakfasts click here

The discussion highlighted a few areas that need more attention, such as the need to prioritize a “Healthy Dhaka”, the need to promote health literacy among the public, and the need for better use of existing facilities.

While participants easily identified the problems with urban primary health care in Dhaka, they recognized that solving the problems will require tremendous planning, coordination, implementation and evaluation. Many great ideas came out of this discussion and new connections were made among various groups of stakeholders – health researchers, providers, and policymakers – making the event a real success.