Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Adult Health and Public Protection and Digital Inclusion and the Director of Public Health submitted a report for the Executive’s consideration. The purpose of the report was to seek approval for an application to the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Middlesbrough Council to join the Global Network of Age Friendly Cities and Communities to achieve Age Friendly Town Status.

The submitted report included:

·         information on the Age-friendly Communities Framework developed by WHO (see paragraphs 2 to 5 of the submitted report)

·         an overview of some of the current achievements of the Age Friendly Middlesbrough Steering Group (see paragraphs 8 to 12); and

·         information on becoming a member of the WHO Global Network global network of Age Friendly Cities and Communities (GNAFCC) and the benefits for Middlesbrough (see paragraphs 13 to 17).

ORDERED

1.     That an application be submitted to the WHO GNAFCC for Middlesbrough Council to achieve age friendly status.

2.     That a covering letter from the Mayor be included with the application.

REASON

Cities and communities could join the network with the commitment by the political leadership to engage in the process and they were welcome to remain in the network for as long as they stayed engaged and shared their experience with fellow members.

An eligible member of the WHO GNAFCC was required to be:

·         A directly elected or mandated public governing body possessing within a given territory, as defined by law, a set of competences to deliver public goods and services to citizens. Given the diverse allocation of responsibility for health policy and community planning among countries, membership was inclusive of sub-national organisational levels from the provincial or state level, to villages and townships with limited population numbers.

·         The authority and capacity to convene mechanisms for inter-sectoral collaboration, conduct baseline assessments and to develop, implement and monitor action plans aimed at making the cities and communities under their sphere of influence more age-friendly.