Pasig City, Philippines

Part of Metro Manila, Pasig City is a highly urbanized area known for its rapid urbanization, economic growth, and diverse population. It is composed of 30 barangays (villages in Filipino). In 2023, the City of Pasig joined the Initiative under its mayor's leadership, quickly working to align the City Government Plan with constituents' health and well-being needs by strengthening participative decision-making. Through the Initiative, the City is committed to develop sustainable mechanisms that assures ongoing community participation in local planning efforts and aligning these activities with broader city development goals. 

Phase 1 (2020-2024) achievements 

• An Urbanlead Committee has been appointed by the mayor, through an administrative order, to manage the implementation of the Initiative. Its establishment facilitates intersectoral partnerships and addresses broad issues affecting health and well-being, coordinating closely with other key decision-making bodies within the city.
• In 2024, Pasig City Health Department organized its first Health Leadership Summit titled “Moving Together for Healthy Communities and Universal Healthcare”. The Summit was attended by more than 100 participants, including Pasig City’s hospital administrators, health programme managers, barangay captains and councilors, Sangguniang Kabataan ‘Youth Council’ chairpersons, and civil society organizations.
• A multidisciplinary team, appointed by the Mayor of Pasig City, participated in the WHO Urbanlead programme. Together, the team identified enhancing participative planning processes at the barangay level and aligning Barangay Development Plans (BDPs) and Pasig City’s Comprehensive Plan as a key entry point to strengthen good governance for health and well-being.
• More than 100 barangay community leaders participated in consultation and capacity-building workshops, organized in collaboration with the University of the Philippines, College of Public Health. These workshops aimed to improve and align Pasig City’s budgeting and planning processes to barangays’ health and well-being needs and priorities.

Phase 2 (2025 -2028) priorities                             

In Phase 2, Pasig City is planning to focus on:

• Ensuring that the Urbanlead Committee is formally represented in the city’s legally mandated multisectoral coordination mechanism to help integrate the urban governance for health and well-being agenda into cross-sectoral planning and implementation.
• Facilitating development and implementation by multiple sectors of joint, evidence-based, and data informed policies.
• Continuing to align and synchronize Pasig City’s Comprehensive Development Plan and BDPs.
• Organizing dialogues between local government, communities and youth.
• Developing a barangay-level urban governance model to address food systems and other health challenges.
• Sharing good practices, developing guidance and advocacy materials on urban governance for health and well-being (e.g. toolkit or playbook) and further developing UGHW leadership and communication orientation and training.