This session builds on the key note linking health and urban planning, and unpacks for a broad audience the challenges and opportunities presented to health systems.
The panel will present successes and challenges of policy makers and health providers of the city of Kigali (Rwanda) and of Conakry (Guinea).

Three dimensions of this panel will ‘unpack’ how the traditional (WHO) concept of “health districts” hold in urban settings:

• How to adapt them to this specific environment? For instance, would every single urban “district” need its own referral hospital? How to delineate “populations of responsibility” in a urban environment?
• How to manage the high density of health care providers and their diversity in terms of qualifications and organizational formats?

Which are the specificities of care pathways and/or the therapeutic itineraries in urban settings, and how to address them?

• Zuberi Muvenyi, Director General Clinical and Public Health Services, Ministry of Health, Rwanda
• Gilbert Biraro, Operations Program Manager & Coordinator at Rwanda Biomedical Center/Single Implementation Unit
• Abdoulaye Sow, Director of Fraternité Médicale, Guinea
• Itamar Rodriguez, Ministerio de Salud Pública, Ecuador & Patricia Granja, former Vice-minister of Health, Ecuador & Professor of Clinical Epidemiology
• Patricia Granja, former Vice-Minister of Health of Ecuador, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador & Universidad Mayor de San Simón

Moderator: Karel Gyselinck, Enabel – Belgian Development Agency, Belgium

Simultaneous interpretation English – French