Advancing people-centred, outcome-driven local governance

Lessons from UNDP's Social Innovation Platforms

December 19, 2025

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_{By Stan van der Leemputte, Project Manager, Local Governance, and Yi Zhang, Local Governance Programme Analyst}

Across Asia-Pacific, meaningful change rarely begins as a project. It starts with conversations: neighbors mapping shared challenges and communities testing ideas to strengthen local economies and public services.

Yet the governance systems around them are often not equipped to support these efforts. Limited autonomy, fragmented mandates, and constrained fiscal space make it difficult to turn local solutions into action. Too often, institutions remain siloed, reactive, and short-term, leaving cities and districts without the ability to plan adaptively or invest for the future. These gaps deepen inequality, slow progress on climate and resilience, and limit people’s influence over public decisions that shape their lives.

UNDP’s new regional report, Rethinking Urban Governance for Tomorrow’s Cities in Asia-Pacific (2025), highlights these governance challenges and outlines a path forward, calling for more adaptive, anticipatory, and people-centered systems that can respond to the complex realities of modern urbanization.

Why these lessons matter now
Against this backdrop, UNDP’s Social Innovation Platform (SIP) — first piloted in 2019 in Indonesia, Thailand, and Pakistan, and expanded in 2024 through a partnership with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) — was designed to help local authorities shift from reactive to anticipatory governance, from consultation to meaningful co-creation with citizens, and enable multi-level governance collaboration. The SIP is now being applied in five additional countries—Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, and the Philippines—providing a common UNDP approach to deepening participatory and systems-based governance at the local level.

By aligning people’s voices with institutional decision-making, SIP supports local authorities to turn community priorities into policies, budgets, and services that better reflect lived realities.

Below are three lessons that have shaped SIP’s evolution and its relevance for the Asia-Pacific today.

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1. Listening is a governance capability, not just a consultation step.

SIP’s experience shows that structured listening is not a soft skill but a governance capability. When local governments integrate it into their routines, they begin to understand problems as people live them, not only as statistics describe them.

In Kulhudhuffushi, Maldives, deep listening exercises led by the City Council, the Local Government Authority, and UNDP reached over 100 residents, from farmers and shopkeepers to teachers and religious leaders, uncovering how people experienced waste, space, and livelihood challenges. These insights are now informing city planning discussions and shaping priorities for future public spaces, nature-based initiatives, and community facilities.

Deep listening and sensemaking helped turn citizen voices into public intelligence. This shows that participation is not just about hearing communities; it’s about changing how institutions learn and act.

2. Going beyond participation: from consultation to co-creation (and shared accountability)

SIP helps shift participation from one-way consultation to joint problem-solving. Instead of asking people for input, it brings communities and authorities together to design and implement solutions, giving residents a real role in shaping outcomes. Across contexts, participation has been strongest when “the swing is within reach”: when people are engaged at times, in places, and through formats that make sense for their lives. SIP’s listening work consistently shows that communities are willing and eager to participate when the process feels accessible, relevant, and safe.

In Dhaka North, Bangladesh, community platforms helped shape city priorities, with resident-led insights directly influencing how public funds were allocated to improve climate-resilient infrastructure and support migrant communities.

In Baguio City, Philippines, residents provided data and local insights that informed the city’s Voluntary Local Review (VLR) and helped align its priorities with the SDGs.

In Malay, Philippines, deep listening revealed the everyday barriers and aspirations of farmers, vendors, women, and youth—insights that are unlikely to surface through formal consultations. These perspectives now guide co-created food system priorities and shape how the local government engages communities.

Co-creation matters because it creates shared responsibility and shared accountability. When communities and institutions design solutions together, they also commit to delivering them, making participation meaningful and durable.

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3. Change lasts when systems adopt new practices and institutions build the capability to use them

Local innovation often fades when project cycles end. SIP shows that transformation lasts when governments both integrate new practices into their planning, budgeting, and policy processes and develop the capabilities to sustain them. This requires alignment across multiple levels of government, from local planning units to national ministries and agencies.

In Indonesia, the Ministry of Villages has integrated SIP principles into the Musrenbang—the village-level planning and budgeting system—helping institutionalize community listening and co-creation nationwide. In Bangladesh, citizen priorities in Dhaka North are now reflected in the city’s annual budget. And in the Philippines, the draft “Malaynon First” ordinance seeks to translate local food priorities into law.

At the same time, SIP helps strengthen the competencies that make these practices repeatable: deep listening, systems mapping, and co-creation. More than 300 officials across SIP-supported locations have been trained to use these tools as part of everyday planning and decision-making.

When systems adopt new practices and institutions build the capability to use them, innovation stops being a pilot and becomes part of how governance actually works.

How Local Democracy Learns

The ADB-UNDP partnership now supports local governments in applying SIP principles in ways that fit their mandates and realities. Country teams draw from a shared approach and common tools, while regional support connects lessons across contexts and strengthens long-term institutional capability. This regional collaboration will culminate in the Asia-Pacific Forum on SDG Localization in 2026 (stay tuned!).

SIP’s story is one of patience, persistence, and practical change. It shows that democracy is not only protected at the ballot box but built every day through the ways communities participate, and institutions respond. When people can influence how resources are used and see their ideas reflected in public action, trust grows and social cohesion strengthens. The next step is building on this momentum so that more communities and governments can strengthen their long-term governance systems. That is what lasting change looks like.