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Cologny GE – The epidemiologist Tolullah Oni from the University of Cambridge is calling for a global Marshall Plan for planetary health. She is among the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum.

In an article on the website of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Tolullah Oni argues that vulnerability to disease could be reduced and health could be improved by refocusing urban planning decisions. The Covid-19 pandemic has heightened awareness of the significant flaws in our urban infrastructure, while at the same time shining a light on the lack of attention paid to the interactions between human health, natural systems and the urban environment, which ultimately influence the health of the planet.

Our economic system has focused too heavily on securing prosperity and nutrition, leading to increased motorized traffic in cities without considering that there needs to be sufficient space for physical exercise in clean air. The construction designs of houses up to now have increased the risk of disease transmission. “We can, and must, do better, by launching a bold new investment program for planetary health”, writes Oni, Clinical Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town.

At best, Oni believes the failure to tackle the negative impacts of today's urban environment represents a missed opportunity to enable healthy communities. However, in a worst-case scenario, she is of the view that this actively contributes to the risk of diseases and heightened transmission rates. As an example of the negative impacts of insufficient and unfit housing policies, Oni points to the increased Covid-19 mortality rates seen among the poorer sections of society in the UK.

Despite the fact that several global philanthropic initiatives have had some success in attempts to improve urban health, the flawed systems of today require more fundamental, bottom-up change. As Oni puts it: “Simply put, the world needs a new Marshall Plan for planetary health – akin to a New Deal for a post-pandemic recovery”.

Both governments and the private sector are being called upon to ensure that policymakers are forced to act so that the health and resilience of people living in large cities, for example, is not regarded simply as a consequence of economic success, but rather as an aim in itself right from the very beginning of a new approach to urban planning. Such approaches have already been implemented, in the form of the Himalayan country of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness index as a factor in measuring GDP or even New Zealand’s efforts to adopt a Wellbeing Economy. “Here, multilateral development finance institutions (MDFIs), such as the African and Asian Development Banks, could help”, Oni writes. As non-commercial organizations that provide capital for economic development projects across a broad spectrum of member states, institutions such as these are uniquely positioned to advance a Marshall Plan-type scheme by leveraging conditions attached to lending and the allocation of funding.