The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has received Healthy Cities Accreditation Certificates from the World Health Organization (WHO) for the cities of Onaiza and Riyadh AlKhubara. The Kingdom has now five healthy accredited cities, namely: AlDiriyah, Jalajel, Onaiza, Riyad Al-Khubara and Al-Jumum. The two certificates were received in Geneva on Wednesday by Deputy Minister for Public Health Dr. Hani Jokhdar who expressed his thanks to the Minister of Health for his continued interest in the healthy cities program and praised the efforts of the program's staff headed by the Program Supervisor-General Dr. Muhammad Khashoggi.
The concept of healthy city means that the city or village environment is at the level that serves and enhances health through coordination and joint action between all environment and health-associated sectors, in addition to concerted efforts of all community members for serving their city.
The health city program aims to promote population health and contribute to upgrading the level of service and health and environmental conditions in cities. This objective can be achieved through different aspects including raising awareness about the health and environmental issues in the context of environmental development efforts, attracting community support and participation in solving problems, preparing and implementing health and environmental activities and projects and enhancing provinces and directorates' capabilities to address health and environmental problems in cities through cooperation among all community members.