By Matthan Luceño

Barangay officials and health workers in the municipality of Kibawe, Bukidnon joined a one-day workshop on bridging leadership in the context of local health governance.

Xavier University - Government and Leadership Institute (XU-GLI) director Dr Dixon Yasay served as the resource speaker at the said event. He shared the new paradigm in running local health programs using the Bridging Leadership Framework (BLF) on how local government units can link health governance to all key functions of a barangay council.

The barangay officials showed interest in the program and expressed their enthusiasm for more engagements with XU-GLI in improving their competencies as barangay leaders, health workers and volunteers.

Kibawe Mayor Minerva Casanave pursued with the Municipal Leadership and Governance Program (MLGP) to bolster their local health sector’s performance on maternal and infant care.

Every local chief executive has aimed to achieve zero maternal and infant deaths, however, as many municipalities in the Philippines were not able to achieve the targets set by the United Nations through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the focus now is on the mitigation of this underperformance.

As part of the Research and Social Outreach (RSO) thematics of XU, GLI continues to provide capacity-building interventions for leaders and communities on local health governance with a special focus on nutrition.

In 2010 and 2013, the National Nutrition Council (NNC) tapped Yasay, a former mayor of the municipality of Opol and champion for health governance, to be the resource person during the Orientation of Newly Elected Mayors (ONE-M) in different regions across the country.