Reflections on the 12th International Conference

on Urban Health, May 2015

Introduction
The 12th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH 2015) saw more than 60
nations come together to share their ideas and expertise across the urban health and
post-2015 development agendas.
Hosted in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the conference is the first ICUH to take place in Asia.
COMDIS-HSD was well-represented through our Bangladesh partners, Advancement
through Research and Knowledge (ARK Foundation) and our Nepal partners, Health
Research and Social Development Forum (HERD).
Here, Saif Iqbal of ARK Foundation and Sudeep Uprety of HERD reflect on the 4-day
event and offer their summaries and highlights.

Saif Iqbal, ARK Foundation

A global community
Scientists, academics, researchers, activists, practitioners, policy makers and community
organisations from more than 60 nations took part in discussions on different urban
health issues in different social, geographical and political settings. A total of six plenary
sessions, 32 breakout sessions and more than 20 special sessions were held at the
conference, with 180 key note papers presented.
It was therefore a very welcome opportunity for ARK Foundation, as a practitioner of
urban and rural health in Bangladesh, to take our place in this wider community of urban
health experts. With the support and encouragement of COMDIS-HSD, four ARK
members participated in the conference and presented two papers:

The use of Long Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC) in urban settings

presented by Farid Ahmed, ARK research associate
The representation of the urban poor in household surveys in Bangladesh
presented by ARK volunteer, Ru-Yi Lin.

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) model - improving access to family planning services
ARKs Public Private Partnership Model project aimed at increasing access to LARC for
the urban poor, generated a lot of interest, with the audience wanting to learn more
about the PPP project and its outcomes.
It gave delegates a clear picture about current status of LARC use in Bangladesh;
provisions for incentives and the challenges faced in increasing their use.

Meeting our other COMDIS-HSD partners

The conference also gave us an opportunity to welcome our fellow COMDIS-HSD partners
HERD to the ARK offices and share our thoughts about how to work more closely. Both
our organisations have common areas of interest on health service delivery issues and
we agreed to continue sharing each others plans and progress.

Sudeep Uprety, HERD

A platform to share
ICUH 2015 gave us a platform to share HERDs 8 years of dedicated work, ideas and
experience in urban health.
Attending the conference along with three other HERD colleagues; Hom Nath Subedi,
Sudeepa Khanal and Uden Maharjan, one of the highlights for us was presenting a paper
on our Urban Health Project which is aimed at supporting the government in developing
an urban health policy and strategy in Nepal. This was followed by a detailed Q&A
session where we took several insightful questions from the floor.
There were more opportunities for sharing outside the conference environment too. We
met COMDIS-HSD partners ARK at their offices in Dhaka for an informal meet-up. This
included a brief sharing session on research uptake (RU) and communications practice
at HERD. Our session was rounded off by the warm hospitality of ARKs executive director
Rumana Huque, giving us a chance to have a joint team dinner and sample the
mouthwatering local Bangladeshi food.

Posting from the front line

Read HERDs daily LinkedIn blog posted direct from the conference and giving detailed
insights into some of the key presentations and the discussions they triggered.

United for urban health: Sensitising for sustainable development

Women for women: Efforts to empower urban poor
Dhaka statement: Pushing and pooling
Seeking south-south collaboration