The Sustainable Cities Programme in the Philippines ((1998-2007) - A compendium of good practices

The Sustainable CitiesProgramme/LA21 Programme in the Philippines was started in 1998 by UN-HABITAT in collaboration with the department of the environment and Natural Resources. It was targeted at secondary towns and was perceived as a localization of the Philippine Agenda 21. Its main purpose was to pioneer the integration of environmental planning and management within the city organizations using the Sustainable Cities Programme-Local Agenda 21 (SCP-LA21) approach.

Three cities were selected as demonstration cities€S,, that is, Lipa, Tagbilaran and Cagayan de Oro. By enhancing the capacity of local government units in participatory environmental planning and management, the programme sought to address issues of poverty, inequity, powerlessness, gender inequality, and environmental degradation evident in the participating cities. each city went systematically through a 4 phase environmental Planning and Management process as follows: Phase 1 - start up, Phase 2 €, strategy and action planning, Phase 3 € follow up and implementation, and Phase 4 € consolidation and replication.

Upon the termination of the Project in 2001, the application of the environmental Planning and Management process showed good prospects in curbing urban problems. The participating Local Government Units found that managing sustainable urbanization presented tremendous challenges, requiring them to undertake bold institutional and policy reforms and new urban environmental strategies.