Join CSU for our first Green Cities of 2025: Cali, Colombia, featuring guest speaker Luis Gabriel Cuervo and moderated by CSU board member Naomi Parekh on Wednesday, February 5th from 12:00p to 1:00 p.m.

Watch the Video Recording Here 

Talk Abstract:

Traffic congestion reduces accessibility to critical services that impact health. However, establishing the links between traffic congestion, accessibility to essential infrastructure, and health equity has remained elusive to intersectoral efforts and public policy. The proponent discusses using relatable metrics and knowledge exchange approaches that capitalize on data sciences and available georeferenced data. This innovative approach demonstrates how urban planning can align with sustainable development goals to address complex challenges.

Luis Gabriel will share how his team developed a collaborative, multi-sector approach and an interactive digital platform to assess and predict access to critical health services, identifying areas where new or improved services could enhance metropolitan accessibility. Despite being unfunded, the AMORE Project, launched in 2020, has conducted:

• Assessments conducted over two weeks in 2020 focused on the tertiary care emergency services required to handle specialized, time-sensitive emergencies.
• Assessments and forecasts aim to enhance access to hemodialysis and radiotherapy. Both outpatient services require continued use, and extended travel can lead to catastrophic health costs and job difficulties for families.

Speaker: Luis Gabriel Cuervo

Luis Gabriel Cuervo is a doctoral candidate at the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona, a family physician, and a clinical epidemiologist. He leads the AMORE Project, a collaboration that brings together diverse actors to align urban and health agendas. The partnership developed a methodology that integrates big and open data to measure and improve travel times to health-critical services while accounting for traffic congestion and equity factors. Their findings are shared through media designed to foster intersectoral dialogue and the participation of diverse audiences, including decision-makers.  The approach was tested in Cali, Colombia, contributing data and insights to the city’s 2024-2027 Development Plan. More information about Dr. Cuervo’s work can be found on can be found on LinkedIn, ORCID, or ResearchGate. The Project’s details are available at the AMORE Project’s Padlet.

Moderator/Host: Naomi Parekh

Naomi Parekh (she/her), a native of Massachusetts, worked in the United Nations system for 9 years where she focused on the political prioritization of Sustainable Development Goals 3, 4, 6, and 11. During her  career at the UN, Naomi managed protocol and curated communications campaigns for high-level meetings around the world and several events during the United Nations General Assembly and High-level Political  Forum. She also served as an Advisor to the President of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly.

Learning Objectives

Participants in this event will:

1. Study how new technologies and open data were used to guide urban health infrastructure and public policy development, contributing to SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).
2. Explore methods for integrating data-driven research findings into urban planning, aligning with SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), to improve social facility placement and accessibility.
3. Discuss how visualization tools can highlight inequities in access to health services, focusing on vulnerable populations, and support SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).
4. Examine the impact of facility location on urban mobility, especially in densely populated areas, and its implications for health equity, addressing SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being).
5. Investigate the adaptability of the AMORE Project’s tools for broader applications, including development plans and social infrastructure planning, supporting SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).

Sponsor Organization for Green Cities:

Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU), UN-Habitat, AIA New York, AIANY Planning & Design, the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, Habitat Professionals Forum for Sustainable Cities, Creative Exchange Lab (CEL), Global Urban Development (GUD), and the Columbia University Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space (CBIPS).