Consultation with stakeholders on the WHO's Physical Activity Strategy

The one-day consultation meeting on physical activity for health was organised by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and Malta, the hosting country.

The WHO European Region is the first Region worldwide to develop a physical activity strategy, a development that was mandated in the Vienna Declaration on Nutrition and Noncommunicable Diseases in the context of Health 2020. In the Vienna Declaration Member States called for a physical activity strategy, alongside the Food and Nutrition Action Plan 2015-2020, to encourage physical activity across all population groups with a view to promoting well-being using a whole-of-society approach, and tackling the burden of obesity and noncommunicable diseases.

In the wake of Polis position paper on health and transport released on 3 December 2014, Polis input to the draft of the Strategy underpinned the strong link between health and active travel, the need for good and inclusive urban design for safer walking and cycling in cities, the integration of the health dimension into sustainable urban mobility planning, and continued dialogue between the national and the local /regional levels for monitoring and data collection.

The strategy will ultimately be considered for adoption by Member States at the 65th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe in Vilnius, Lithuania, this September.

For more information, please contact Florinda Boschetti.