In May 2013, the Department of Health (DOH) and Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF) entered into an unprecedented three-year public-private partnership agreement. The “Health Leadership and Governance Program” (HLGP) uses the ZFF Health Change Model to fix local health systems and help the country achieve its national health targets.

The National Anti-Poverty Commission has identified 609 areas for inclusion. Local chief executives and health officers in these areas undergo ZFF’s leadership formation programs and receive technical and resource support from the DOH. With this partnership, ZFF serves as a bridge linking the national and regional levels of the DOH with the provincial and municipal government units. ZFF and the DOH maintain separate budgets and funds: the DOH pays for training, participants’ expenses and academic fees while ZFF covers facilitating expenses.

Once ZFF’s approach is institutionalized in the DOH, a sustained flow of technical, financial and logistical support for health system reforms from the DOH to the local governments is expected.

In 2016, the initiative was given an extended run until November 2017.

It was in 2012 when the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and ZFF first formed a partnership for a four-year joint project on “Strengthening Provincial and Municipal Health Champions.” In 2018, another partnership was forged to pilot the “Youth Leadership and Governance Program” (YLGP) in Mindanao municipalities whose leaders had finished a ZFF health leadership and governance program.

In the 2012 partnership, ZFF’s health leadership formation programs helped empower governors and mayors drive healthcare reforms in their respective provincial and municipal units, particularly in reproductive health, family planning, and adolescent sexual programs.

Nine provinces and 59 municipalities were covered by the partnership. The provinces are: Ifugao, Mountain Province, Camarines Norte, Albay, Eastern Samar, Surigao del Sur, Compostela Valley, Sultan Kudarat, and Saranggani.

For the YLGP, an initial set of 10 municipalities forms the first cohort followed by 40 more in the succeeding years. The goal is to give youth leaders of the Sangguniang Kabataan (Council of Youth) capacities to lead the design and implementation of programs that can reduce incidence of adolescent pregnancies.

In October 2013, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and ZFF participated in a three-year Global Development Alliance to implement capability-building programs in 121 LGUs, including three cities under USAID’s Cities Development Initiative. The aim of the joint project is to enhance leadership and governance skills of local chief executives and health officers so they can improve systems for maternal and child health, family planning, and tuberculosis treatment in USAID areas.

The project’s specific objectives are:

• To train local government leaders and health officers on the Bridging Leadership framework
• To implement more responsive local health systems for the needs of MCH, FP, and TB prevention and control; and
• To increase community participation and health-seeking behavior in target areas through improved local health systems and management

There are two components under the seventh country programme (2012-2016) of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF):

(1) services and systems to address inequities for the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, and (2) a well-developed human security and social policy framework to lessen risks from inequities, conflict, and natural disasters by 2016.

From February 2014 to June 2016, UNICEF partnered with ZFF to boost its efforts to reduce inequities for the fulfillment of the MDGs. This project was also aligned with the Health Leadership and Governance Program (HLGP), a joint initiative between ZFF and DOH. The UNICEF-ZFF venture involved six highly urbanized cities and nine municipalities from the priority areas identified by the National Anti-Poverty Commission.

Leadership and governance programs were created specifically for city and municipal health officers. The program included workshops on evidence-based planning as a method to identify healthcare constraints that prevent the scale-up of health programs even when they are found to be effective.

UNICEF was also a ZFF partner in assisting municipalities affected by super typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda) in Samar and Eastern Samar. Twelve identified municipalities were enrolled in ZFF’s leadership formation program and Recovery Assistance Program for Mothers. After the program, health leaders were trained to establish and maintain sustainable healthcare for continuous delivery of services before, during, and after disasters.

In 2017, the Zuellig Family Foundation piloted a two-year project funded by the Swiss-registered Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Foundation . It built on the health leadership and governance program given to leaders of two ZFF alumni municipalities: Gamay in Northern Samar, and Looc in Romblon.

The project aims to increase the leaders’ capacities to establish harmonized and responsive governance systems in nutrition. It is particularly interested in improving the First 1000 days nutrition, i.e. from time of conception until two years, which is a crucial time for the motor and cognitive development of a person’s brain. Among the outcomes monitored are rates of stunting and wasting among the children.

Headquartered in Canada, Nutrition International has programs in over 60 countries supporting or implementing programs to address malnutrition. In 2019, it partnered with the Zuellig Family Foundation to implement ZFF’s approach in improving the first 1000 days nutrition in the cities of Puerto Princesa, Tagum, and Tacurong. The approach is a strategic adaptation of what was used for the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Foundation partnership project in two rural municipalities.

Top officials in the central office of Commission on Population and its regional directors have been undergoing the Zuellig Family Foundation’s Bridging Leadership training program. Among the objectives is improving their capacities at engaging local government officials to allow the collaborative and effective implementation of reproductive health and family planning programs in local communities.