Getting Started with the SDGs in Cities

This stakeholder guide – intended for city leaders, local practitioners, and local policymakers – provides suggestions for localizing the Sustainable Development Goals in cities.

Chapter 1 explains the background of the SDGs and the importance of a city-level approach to the sustainable development agenda. This is a brief and general chapter that would be most useful for people who have little familiarity with recent global frameworks for urban development.

Chapter 2 provides practical guidance for working toward the SDGs at a local level. This is distilled into four general steps:

1)      Initiate an inclusive and participatory process

2)      Set the local SDG agenda

3)      Plan for SDG implementation

4)      Monitor and evaluate SDG implementation

Examples are given of each step, with the aim of showing how the methodology can be adapted to local contexts. These also give an overview of how SDG localization is being (or could be) gradually rolled out worldwide. For instance, to initiate an inclusive and participatory process, the CALL 2015 project in the Philippines established MDG integrity circles (involving local women, academic institutions, civil society organizations and others) for dialogue on service delivery and governance. To set the local SDG agenda, local governments in India could build on the Service Level Benchmarking initiative of the Ministry of Urban Development, which seeks to identify targets and reporting for the water and sanitation sector. To plan for SDG implementation, the Bangladeshi NGO Waste Concern, whose decentralized model of private and community partnership turns solid waste into compost, provides an example of an alternative service delivery model established from the bottom up. And to monitor and evaluate SDG implementation, Brazilian civil society organizations and government agencies are collaborating with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and GIZ to develop possibilities for monitoring the SDGs in Rio de Janeiro.

Chapter 3 explores the enabling environment for SDG localization. The key enabling conditions discussed are decentralized governance, integrated local governance, municipal finance, government capacity development for the SDGs, and policy frameworks. Again the authors point to case studies and outline good practices. While describing the importance of national urban policies, for instance, they list the countries that have such national frameworks, and how these can be used productively for cooperation among different levels of government.

Overall, the report shows how preliminary many approaches to SDG localization are at the moment. Translating these good intentions and first steps into durable change is a daunting task, but this report attempts to make the challenges seem manageable.

Available from:

http://unsdsn.org/resources/publications/getting-started-with-the-sdgs-in-cities/

Further reading:

Environment and Urbanization (2016), “From the MDGs to the SDGs and Habitat III”, Vol 28, No 1, available at http://eau.sagepub.com/content/28/1.toc.

Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for Post-2015 Development Agenda towards Habitat III (2014), How to Localize Targets and Indicators of the Post-2015 Agenda, available at https://www.uclg.org/sites/default/files/localization_targets_indicator_web.pdf.

Hasan, Arif, Sheela Patel and David Satterthwaite (2005), “How to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in urban areas”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 17, No 1, pages 3–19, available at http://eau.sagepub.com/content/17/1/3.full.pdf+html.

Uduku, N O (1994), “Promoting community based approaches to social infrastructure provision in urban areas in Nigeria”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 6, No 2, pages 57–78, available at http://eau.sagepub.com/content/6/2/57.abstract.

Book note prepared by Christine Ro