City holds SDGS for stakeholders workshop

The City Government under Mayor Benjamin Magalong, through the City Planning, Development, and Sustainability Office (CPDSO), conducted an Integrated Solutions for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Stakeholders Workshop on November 26 and 27 in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Philippines.

Participants of the two-day activity were from various sectors of society and were grounded in the core concepts of the SDGs, their hierarchy, and how each goal connects to another, whether positively or negatively.

CPDSO head Ar. Donna Tabangin said they revisited Baguio’s 1st SDG Voluntary Local Review (VLR), launched last June 2025, which highlighted the city’s on-track, progressing, and regressing indicators.

Participants worked in groups to identify the challenges found in the VLR and transformed these into meaningful design questions using the “How might we…” method.

Public Finance Management was discussed, which is a system of rules and processes that guides how the government manages public funds, and that every citizen has the right to participate and engage in how public resources are allocated and utilized.

Participants were also introduced to the 9R Framework, a guide on how people can create “kwento ng bawat kwenta,” and had a challenge on the subject where they explored its five important budget notes – Change, Proportion, Strategy, Spending, and Performance.

“Through these, they learned how to calculate and analyze budgets to help them craft their own SDG investment pitches for decision-makers,” Tabangin.

Building on Baguio’s 1st SDG VLR, the Stakeholder Partnership Accelerator for Convergence and Engagement (SPACE) Web Application was introduced, a central platform for coordination, communication, and collaboration around the country’s SDGs.

She said that by mapping stakeholders and creating personas, participants were able to localize the SPACE Web App by defining the right problems that the platform should address and through reframing challenges using “How might we…?”, it opened pathways for collaboration and possibility.

With clearer problems identified, participants proceeded to ideate solutions using Crazy 8s, generating 8rapid sketches in 8 minutes to unlock creativity and concrete ideas.

To move from vision to action, each participant listed their top 3 commitments to advance their solutions beyond the workshop, Tabangin said.

“Sustainable development is not achieved by one sector alone—it is built when communities choose to show up, step up, and work together. With five years left to catch up, every participant was encouraged to remain engaged in Baguio’s next steps toward achieving the 2030 Agenda,” she said. – Gaby B. Keith