Barcelona City Council has launched the 'City Pact against Loneliness 2026-2030' to address unwanted loneliness across the city. The initiative, presented on 12 May 2026, seeks to involve residents, social organisations, economic agents, academic institutions, and civil society in combating a phenomenon that affects health, well-being, and social cohesion in Barcelona.

Mayor Jaume Collboni stated that the pact aims to "mobilise all our knowledge, all our solidarity, raising awareness of the problem and its complexity." He noted that loneliness also affects children and adolescents. Collboni added that the pact "wants to try to touch all aspects" of unwanted loneliness, using "accumulated experience to pool it under these umbrellas offered by the City Council and contribute to the emotional and physical well-being of many people who are currently alone at home."

Barcelona was a pioneer with its Municipal Strategy against Loneliness 2020-2030, which implemented over 135 actions to establish institutional foundations for addressing the issue. The new City Pact aims to transform this municipal commitment into a cross-cutting agreement with the entire city, recognising unwanted loneliness as a structural and shared challenge that requires a collective and coordinated response from administrations, organisations, businesses, and residents.

Addressing Loneliness Across All Ages

The City Pact against Loneliness approaches the phenomenon by acknowledging that it can affect people of all ages and social and cultural backgrounds. From this broad perspective, the pact promotes a change in social narrative, moving beyond stigmatising views and understanding loneliness as a human experience. It also encourages a community-based and preventive approach, strengthening local ties, meeting spaces, and early detection, especially in childhood.

The pact identifies neighbourhoods and daily environments as key spaces for preventing and supporting situations of loneliness. It also champions culture as a tool for generating connections and expressing emotions. The City Pact is committed to work based on knowledge, data, and evaluation, and promotes new ideas and adaptability to respond to the changing needs of residents.

Seven Strategic Challenges

The 'City Pact against Loneliness 2026-2030' outlines seven strategic and new challenges, detailed in an action plan with institutional projects and alliances to be achieved between 2026 and 2030:

Invisible Loneliness: This challenge focuses on the digital well-being of children and adolescents to reduce emotional disconnection and protect mental health from new social risks. A related project, 'Digital well-being in children and adolescents', aims to prevent and reduce isolation and the negative effects of digital environments, promoting safe, responsible, and critical use of technology and digital media.

Loneliness in the Workplace: This challenge addresses loneliness as a risk factor in the work environment. It includes two projects: a guide and infographic for small and medium-sized enterprises, and a workshop for businesses to provide guidelines and recommendations for situations of unwanted loneliness that employees may experience.

Connecting Public Space: The goal is to adapt urban planning and design to transform Barcelona into a more friendly and caring city, where public space becomes a catalyst for social relations, generating connections, coexistence, and a sense of community belonging. Projects under this challenge include adapting public spaces for an ageing population, using shaded areas as a health infrastructure or a space for social interaction and educational tool, and restoring public washhouses as symbolic meeting and conversation places.

Rewriting Loneliness: This involves transforming the social narrative from stigma to a view of loneliness as an opportunity for growth through prevention. Related activities include emotional workshops to understand and learn to live with loneliness, and collaboration on the podcast 'In Search of Loneliness' (A la Recerca de la Soledat), which explains the phenomenon of loneliness.

Role of Residents: This promotes volunteering and citizen micro-initiatives to strengthen daily support networks. Projects include fostering intergenerational connections and creating an award to highlight citizen initiatives that help combat unwanted loneliness.

Intergenerational Projects: This encourages interaction and connection between people of different generations to break down age barriers and stereotypes through social projects. Examples include theatre and culture as meeting points for older and younger people, and a project where older people living alone offer affordable rent and shared living to young people. The City Council will continue to promote projects like 'Living and Coexisting' (Viure i Conviure) and 'Bikes without Age' (Bicis sense edat), aimed at fostering intergenerational connections.

Social Prescription: This aims to promote social prescribing from the health and community sectors as a non-medicalised alternative to the discomforts arising from loneliness.

Ecosystem of the Pact

The City Pact against Loneliness will feature a network of collaborating agents, including foundations, federations, organisations, and businesses. Under the leadership of Barcelona City Council, these agents will help develop the action plan. This network will be an open and dynamic space, allowing new agents to join as projects are defined, contributing their expertise, motivation, and resources.

Barcelona City Council is an active agent within this ecosystem, deploying institutional actions and projects from various municipal departments. This ensures that public action and city initiatives advance together across each of the seven challenges.

There are two participation modalities, depending on the level of involvement of each organisation or institution:

  • Adherence to the 'Barcelona against Loneliness' commitment: This is an initial, cross-cutting link where individuals or organisations express their willingness to join Barcelona's vision against loneliness, sharing strategic lines of awareness, education, and promotion of social relations in the city. More than 110 adhesions have been made since this commitment was launched as part of the strategy.
  • Active agent of the Pact: These are organisations, businesses, or institutions that assume a distributed leadership role and work directly with the City Council in deploying concrete projects linked to the Pact's seven challenges. This modality involves shared management, with clear role definition and co-creation of solutions to alleviate the effects of unwanted loneliness.

The driving core that has already started some projects includes Fundació Exea Impact, Consorci d'Educació, Càtedra Esade, Sant Joan de Déu, PIMEC, Fundació Factor Humà, Fundació Salut i Persona, Col·legi Oficial de Psicologia, Institut Avançat d'Arquitectura de Catalunya, Equal Saree, Noumena, La Máquina, Salut Mental Catalunya, Ship2B, Associació Espanyola contra el Càncer, Arquitectura de Contacte, Federació Catalana de Voluntariat Social (FCVS), Associació Aste, Hospital de Sant Pau, Focus, Kuvu, Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona, Agència de Salut Pública de Catalunya, Col·legi Oficial d'Infermers i Infermeres, and Consorci Sanitari.