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ESCAP Photo/Hannes Wilhelm Nicolai Lindman
Cooling hub and shaded public space in Iloilo City to cool down the city's residents during period of high temperature
In Iloilo City, Philippines, the impacts of extreme heat are felt in everyday moments: waiting for transport under limited shade, walking through paved streets, working outdoors, sitting in classrooms or seeking care for heat-related illness. For older persons, children, outdoor workers, low-income communities, persons with disabilities and people with existing health conditions, the extreme heat can quickly become more than uncomfortable. It can become unsafe.
Urban heat resilience is therefore not only a climate planning issue. It is also a public health, infrastructure, service delivery, and equity issue. Through the project “Enabling Urban Action to Enhance Climate Resilience in Asia,” supported by the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office through the Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA) programme, ESCAP is working with selected cities in South and South-East Asia to strengthen practical responses to urban extreme heat. In Iloilo City, ESCAP's support is helping move urban heat response from individual measures to a coordinated planning and implementation process, grounded in local evidence and shaped through stakeholder engagement.
Understanding the heat-risk that residents face and taking practical action are increasingly important for cities across the region as extreme heat affects the livability of their communities. ESCAP’s support to Iloilo City therefore spans a heat-risk baseline assessment, the development of an Urban Heat Action Plan, pilot actions to assess what works, and opportunities for regional knowledge exchange.
Iloilo City participants reviewing heat-risk maps or discussing priority actions during the Urban Heat Action Planning Workshop (ESCAP Photo/Hannes Wilhelm Nicolai Lindman)
For Iloilo City, where residents have faced heat index levels reaching 47°C and rising heat-related concerns, regional learning has already translated into local action. In April 2026, city representatives joined ESCAP's Regional Training Workshop on Advancing Urban Heat Resilience in Asia-Pacific in Bangkok. The workshop created space for peer exchange on heat-risk assessments, early warning systems, public communication, cooling strategies, and urban heat planning.
One practical lesson came from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's use of cooling centers as part of its heat response efforts. Iloilo City has since adapted this idea to its own context through cooling hubs, developed with public-private and local partnership support, linking them to broader efforts on hydration, public health support, communication, and urban greening. This demonstrates how regional knowledge exchange can help cities adapt practical solutions to local needs.
What would it take to make Iloilo City safer and more comfortable during periods of extreme heat? To answer this question, local stakeholders, city departments, technical partners, academic institutions, and private sector representatives joined ESCAP and our project partner, United Cities and Local Governments Asia-Pacific (UCLG-ASPAC), to review evidence and identify solutions through the Iloilo City Urban Heat Action Planning Workshop, held on 24-25 June 2026.
In the spirit of co-design, participants brought different forms of knowledge to the table. City departments shared operational experience from health, planning, disaster risk reduction, environment and service delivery, while academic and technical partners helped interpret heat-risk data and maps. Barangay and community representatives added insights on lived conditions, including the challenges faced by outdoor workers, low-income communities and residents with limited access to shade or cooling. Together, these perspectives helped validate and refine priorities identified through the baseline assessment and emerging Urban Heat Action plan, ensuring they reflected local realities and could work in practice. The discussions moved quickly from identifying risks to shaping solutions, including shaded public spaces, expanded tree canopy, school heat-health protocols, localized monitoring, and better integration of heat resilience into city plans and budgets.
By the end of the workshop, the conversation had moved from ideas to a clearer implementation pathway. Building on the baseline assessment and validation workshop discussions, participants identified practical options for follow-up, including roadside pocket gardens, green arches along the Iloilo Esplanade, improved heat-risk data systems, localized monitoring, and training for Barangay Health Workers and city volunteers on heat stress and heat stroke response. Pocket gardens were discussed as targeted greening interventions that could bring shade, vegetation, and cooling closer to heat-exposed streets and public spaces. Green arches along the Esplanade offer another visible cooling measure, with the potential to combine shade and greenery with features such as solar-powered roofing, rainwater harvesting, or misting.
Alongside these physical cooling measures, stakeholders also prioritized an integrated database to help Iloilo City track heat risks, guide decisions, and target support where it is most needed. The collaborative process also helped clarify which city offices and partners could lead or support each action, strengthening cross-sector ownership and creating a clearer pathway for integrating urban heat resilience into existing plans, budgets and coordination mechanisms. These ideas will now be reviewed for feasibility, helping the city move from planning toward practical, locally owned heat resilience actions.
Input from workshop's participants explaining how they want to change the city (ESCAP Photo/Hannes Wilhelm Nicolai Lindman)
Iloilo City’s experience shows how regional learning can translate into practical local action. Lessons from Bangkok helped inform a locally adapted response through cooling hubs, while the Urban Heat Action Planning Workshop created space for city stakeholders to validate risks and shape priorities based on local evidence and needs. Iloilo City is one of two partner cities supported under this phase of the initiative, alongside Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Together, the two cities offer different urban and institutional contexts for testing practical approaches to urban heat resilience in South and South-East Asia.
As extreme heat becomes an increasingly pressing challenge across Asia and the Pacific, Iloilo City offers an emerging example of how cities can move from understanding heat risks to implementing practical, context-specific solutions that help protect communities today and build resilience for the future. Lessons from Iloilo City and Cox’s Bazar will help inform ESCAP’s and the CARA programme’s wider support for cities seeking to protect vulnerable communities and advance urban heat resilience.
To keep informed about ESCAP’s work addressing urban extreme heat, please visit https://www.unescap.org/our-work/environment-development/cities-for-a-sustainable-future/addressing-urban-extreme-heat and join our mailing list at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/BEYfw4RTQA
Alejandro Garcia Macias
Matthew Perkins
Environment and Development
Wed, 26/08/2026 - 12:00
3. Good Health and Well-Being
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
13. Climate Action
17. Partnerships for the Goals
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