Climate Change and the Future of Public Health for Urban Informal Settlements in the Global South

Global Health Speaker Series 2024-2025

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

As climate change accelerates, the global development and climate change communities continue to ignore the plight of the urban poor, who face the brunt of challenges caused by rising global temperatures. Over the last five decades, the urban poor in the Global South have been failed by initiatives aimed at improving the human condition, including the Millennium Development Goals, the Sustainable Development Goals, WHO guidelines on social determinants of health, and the United Nations COP meetings on climate change. Alarmingly, despite all calls for action, the realities experienced by people living in urban informal settlements continue to be invisible to global stakeholders.

However, people living in urban informal settlements in the Global South comprise more than one billion people, and their social and environmental determinants of health can no longer be ignored. This seminar will discuss how residents of urban informal settlements are using transnational movements to advance their living conditions and make challenges to their health and well-being visible to the global community.

Sheela Patel
Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC)