Partners:
Project Duration: April 2025 to Present
Capabilities Delivered:
Seeing Systems - Systems Thinking, Systems & Social Research
Designing Change - Learning Experience Design, Narrative and Communication Design, Impact Assessment through Design of Monitoring, Evaluation, & Learning (MEL) Framework, and Weaving Experiences of Place & People.
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In many Philippine localities, national programs often arrive as polished blueprints detached from local realities. LGUs are left struggling with models that don’t fit, weighed down by complex frameworks, overlapping mandates, and shifting guidance.
To truly serve communities, systems must move beyond compliance and invite co-creation, so that visions of smart and sustainable development take root in ways that are real, relevant, and doable.
To address this, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) launched the Smart and Sustainable Communities Program (SSCP) - a structured yet flexible framework guiding long-term, inclusive, and adaptive development.
How can national goals around "smart" and "sustainable" development take root in ways that feel real, relevant, and doable for local governments and communities?
Despite strong momentum, many LGUs lack tools to:
Through its Braver Governance by Design systems approach, KindMind supported LGUs in reimagining smart and sustainable communities. This meant honest dialogue, co-created solutions, and harmonizing local priorities with global standards - always centering the well-being of people and planet.
From dialogues with LGUs and the SSCP Technical Working Group emerged a collective definition of smart and sustainable communities. These insights shaped the ILAW Framework—“ilaw” meaning light—symbolizing new pathways for transformation.
The framework enables LGUs to define, measure, and monitor progress using principles that are inclusive, localized, adaptive, and systemic, while remaining aligned with global standards. KindMind combined research, systems thinking, and participatory design to translate abstract concepts into concrete local pathways.
The project surfaced strategic, localized, and globally aligned pathways for Philippine communities, enabling governance that is adaptive, inclusive, and future-ready.
The SSCP was strengthened through the ILAW framework—Innovative and Inclusive Circular Economy, Learning and Participatory Governance, Adaptive and Regenerative Planet, and Well-being of People and Communities. This envisions communities that are: economically resilient, ecologically balanced, socially cohesive, and technologically empowered.
The ILAW Framework also introduced indicators to ensure measurable and replicable progress. There are Core Indicators common across LGUs for comparability, as well as Localized Indicators customized for each unique situation of cities and municipalities, depending on urban, island, class, and geography.
An essential component of the framework is the systemic roadmap, which identifies leverage points, defines outcomes, and integrates adaptive loops for continuous learning. This includes:
The ILAW Framework was validated at national and regional levels—with SSCP Technical Working Group, DOST Regional Directors, and LGU representatives—ensuring strategies are aligned nationally yet grounded locally.
The SSCP initiative demonstrates how systems thinking and participatory design can reframe Philippine development—embedding inclusivity and sustainability at the core so communities grow not only smarter, but also more equitable, livable, and future-ready. Through the ILAW Framework, supported by systemic insight and adaptive learning, it builds a strong foundation for long-term, people-centered change that advances both the planet and prosperity.
SDG 11, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 17
