Urbanization is increasing quickly and has brought many benefits to society, however uncontrolled urban growth with poor urban planning, and urban governance can lead to a variety of urban problems. The negative impacts relate to issues ranging from environmental problems such as pollution, transportation, traffic congestion and poor sanitation to social problems, including crime, violence, street children, homelessness, HIV/AIDS and narcotic abuse. These problems can be detrimental to the health of urban residents. In order to address the complexity of urban health challenges, in the mid-1980s the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Healthy Cities concept and it has now been implemented worldwide in both developed and developing countries, including Indonesia.

Partnership and working together with different sectors and organisations is a key ingredient to the successful implementation of Healthy Cities. This is also an important issue in the Indonesian context. Coordination and collaboration across sectors is problematic. Government, the private sector and NGOs tend to work separately and independently according to their own prioritized program, without effective coordination and collaboration. Research into partnership challenges and solutions in implementing Healthy Cities is also limited, especially at the local government level. Hence, this research aims to investigate the challenges and determinants of successful partnership development in the implementation of Healthy Cities in Indonesia, especially at local government level.