Guillermo M. Luz, Chairman, Liveable Cities Philippines

Last January, the Liveable Cities Philippines, and Sanofi organized the Liveable Cities Lab with the theme, "Universal Health Care: Better Health for All."

Labs are our platform for sharing best practices and learning through expert presentations and public-private dialogues. It seeks to explore concrete measures and innovative solutions for better city planning and management. The virtual forum, with over 200 attendees on Zoom and on Facebook, was our 2022 opener and the 23rd webinar since we started the series in 2020 because of the pandemic.

We were honored to have the following speakers talk about better public health management: National Scientist and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Dr. Ernesto Ochoa Domingo, DOH Chief Health Program Officer Disease - Disease Prevention and Control Bureau Christian Nuevo, Baguio City Mayor Benjie Magalong, and Sanofi General Manager for Vaccines Kashmira Prabhu. The presentations and the discussion focused on three key issues: preparing public health systems for future pandemics; prioritizing universal healthcare coverage; and promoting healthier societies via holistic policies.

The Lab is part of our partnership with Sanofi in the Health Dashboard Project that aims to promote and strengthen public health through data and innovation. With the pandemic, health has never been a more important and critical component of a competitive, sustainable, resilient, and liveable city. Among the key indicators of a city, we focus on health data as an urgent priority given the COVID situation, and other health-related issues. We will look at the data on the relevant SDG goals on Zero Hunger, nutrition, and on Good Health, such as health facilities and professionals. As we add more information to the dashboard, we envision LGUs to develop data-driven policies for improved health care services and delivery, including nutrition and immunization programs, especially for women, children, and other vulnerable sectors.

The project builds on the Liveable Cities Dashboard which we started in 2019, an online platform that consolidates multiple data sources to present city profiles across 10 main categories - Demographics, Labor, Education, Local Economy, Doing Business, Mobility and Connectivity, Health, Urban Environment, Resiliency and Emergency Response, and Safety and Security.

In 2021, we improved the dashboard, adding more features and data in time series, through the support of the British Embassy Manila, Globe Telecom, in partnership with the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index (CMCI), the League of Cities of the Philippines, the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF), and our dashboard provider, Delivery Associates.

Even before Liveable Cities was conceived, we have been promoting the use of data and information at the National Competitiveness Council together with our team at the Department of Trade and Industry, and other public-private sector partners. I am very happy to note that this shared advocacy lives on, and now with our new partner, Sanofi, we will be able to provide a clearer picture of the city's health performance, which will form the basis for adequate policies and measures.

By utilizing data visualization, local governments can easily spot trends for effective decision-making and help them diagnose areas for improvement. Through the dashboard, LGUs can effectively engage stakeholders including city and national agencies, businesses, academe, non-government organizations, and citizens.

This new partnership for the Liveable Cities Health Dashboard is a continuing effort and commitment to supporting the liveability of our cities. Through data and innovation, we will be more effective partners of the government and the LGUs, especially the 146 cities of the Philippines – ready to engage them and complement their programs and initiatives, particularly with the Labs and the Health Dashboard.