Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-: Their Excellencies the Ministers of Health in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council set March 1 of each year to be the (Gulf Healthy Cities Day.) It is an annual celebration which aims at unifying the Gulf role in highlighting the development goals of the healthy cities program, along with shedding light on community participation with decision-makers and various sectors within every healthy city. This is to enhance the health of the individual, reduce the economic burden of health care and achieve sustainable development goals.
This came as a culmination of the efforts of the Gulf countries that joined the Healthy Cities Program, which is one of the community health initiatives launched by the World Health Organization. The Ministry of Health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has adopted its implementation since 1999. This developmental preventive program works to improve all aspects of the environment surrounding the lives and well-being of the population, which directly and indirectly affect health. It has also received interest and support from decision-makers in various regions of the Kingdom, which are more than 45 governorates and centers, as it is an integrated organizational model that reinforce modern concepts which are represented in the fact that the responsibility for health and well-being begins with the individual.
The Kingdom has been able to develop at a region and global scale in recent years. This is due to obtaining the accreditation of the World Health Organization for nine healthy cities which are, Diriyah, Madinah, Taif, Unaizah, Jalajil, Al-Mandaq, Jamoum, Riyadh Al-Khubra, and Sharurah. In addition to the accreditation of Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University as the first health-promoting university in the province.
In addition, it was decided to hold a celebration of the Gulf Day for Healthy Cities in all the Gulf countries for this year under the slogan (Healthy Cities for Sustainable Development), where several local sports activities were held such as cycling in 9 different cities, climbing with people with disabilities in Taif, the Jeddah Marathon, motorsports in Jeddah Corniche, and the Riyadh Marathon in cooperation with the Ministry of Health.