To do:

• Find more references
• Rewrite in more encyclopedic tone

Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) means taking into account subnational contexts in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, from the setting of goals and targets, to the definition of the means of implementation and use of indicators to measure and monitor progress. It is also putting the territories and their peoples’ priorities, needs and resources at the center of sustainable development. There should be sustained exchanges between the global, national and local facets. ^[1] According to the United Nations Development Program "localizing development should not be seen as a translation of global policies within a local context, but rather as a process based on the empowerment of local stakeholders, aimed at making sustainable development more responsive and more relevant to local needs, aspirations and lives through sustained exchanges between the global, national and local levels.  All partners- the government at all levels, civil society, private sector, development agencies will need to work together to ensure steady progress on this transformative development agenda". ^[2]

“It is often said that, like all politics, all development is ultimately local. As the world strives for a more sustainable path in the years ahead, particularly beyond 2015, local voices and local action will be crucial elements in our quest… it is crucial to preserve and nurture political spaces where local authorities can have an impact on decision-making at the global level… Local authorities have significantly increased their engagement in global processes. The inputs of local leaders and municipal planners have never been more critical to guiding Member States toward embracing policies that achieve green, sustainable and inclusive cities.”

Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary-General, Message to the Meeting of the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments for the Post-2015 Development Agenda. 28 May 2013”

Background

The concept of localization applied to development appeared for the first time within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals, when a guideline for localizing the MDGs was jointly developed in 2005 by UNDP ^[3] and the Local Government International Bureau (LGIB). It drew on the ample evidence of creative local strategies for achieving the MDGs across the globe.The toolkit was conceived as a part of a broader initiative aiming at mobilizing local capacity and unleashing opportunities for leaders to realize the MDGs at the local level. The guideline argued that the MDGs must reflect local realities, engage people and be locally owned since the focus on the local level combined with appropriate linkages to national poverty reduction strategies supports can bridge regional disparities, socio-economic, gender and ethnic inequalities, and thus, foster more rapid, equitable and sustainable development. 

Later on, in 2018, the mid-term evaluation of the MDGs introduced certain key aspects on localization shared by the United Nations Secretary-General and in 2011, the importance of local and regional governments in development was emphasized on MDG 5, Rio+20 summit, the 2011 Busan Declaration and the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Agenda report.

The dialogue on Localizing the Post-2015 Development Agenda

The journey of the post-2015 agenda creation started in 2012, with the "Rio+20" Conference on Sustainable Development. The Rio+20 outcome document, The Future We Want, called for development of a set of sustainable development goals which would build on the Millennium Development Goals but also including issues such as natural resources management, sustainable consumption and production, effective institutions, good governance, the rule of law and peaceful societies. To that end, the United Nations facilitated the largest ever ‘Global Conversation’ on the world that people want to see - MY WORLD - in order to create the agenda that would succeed the MDGs after 2015. The first phase of the dialogue was developed from 2012 to 2013 and focused on potential issues and areas to be included in the agenda. The second phase, "created in response to the strong demand that people expressed during the UN Global Conversation in 2012/2013 about being involved not just in the design of the post-2015 agenda but also in its implementation" took place during the years 2014 - 2015 and was concentrated on the means of the implementation, with dialogues organized in 13 countries (Armenia, Burundi, Cameroon, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Jamaica, Malawi, Philippines, Portugal, Tajikistan, Tanzania and Vanuatu) and around six main areas of discussion: ^[4]

1. Localizing the Post-2015 Development Agenda;
2. Helping to strengthen capacities and institutions;
3. Participatory Monitoring, existing and new forms of accountability;
4. Partnerships with civil society and other actors.
5. Partnerships with the private sector;
6. Culture and development.

Specifically, as the achievement of many of the MDGs depended on the work of local governments and stakeholders, the need for stronger engagement of local stakeholders in the definition, implementation and monitoring of the post-2015 development agenda was recognized. In February 2014, UNDP through ART Initiative and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), on behalf of UNDG, together with the  Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for the Post- 2015 Development  Agenda were appointed to lead "the Dialogues on localizing the Post-2015 Development Agenda". The process was carried out jointly with national governments, local government and their associations, citizens and communities.

Therefore, an Advisory Committee for the Localization of the Post-2015 Agenda was established. Composed by national and local governments, Academia, the European Commission, the private sector, represented by the Global Compact, as well as Youth and Women Networks and Foundations. This consultative body provided an overall guidance to the process and aimed at facilitating the cross-fertilization between the local and national governments, CSOs and the UN System.

Within this framework localization was acknowledged as "the process of defining, implementing and monitoring strategies at the local level for achieving global, national and subnational sustainable development goals and targets" and the outputs of the dialogues included contributions from the local level, voicing local issues at national and international levels". ^[5]

As a result of the localizing dialogues, key messages were approved by the participants and co-leaders of the consultation, as follow:

• Local and regional governments are essential for promoting inclusive sustainable development within their territories and, therefore, are necessary partners in the implementation of the SDGs.
• Effective local governance can ensure the inclusion of a diversity of local stakeholders, thereby creating broadbased ownership, commitment and accountability.
• An integrated multi-level and multistakeholder approach is needed to promote transformative agendas at the local level.
• Strong national commitment to provide adequate legal frameworks and institutional and financial capacity are required.

During 2014, UNESCO, UNFPA and UNDP, co-leaded the Post-2015 Dialogues on Culture and Development, which were built upon the results of the National multistakeholders consultations undertaken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, Mali, Morocco and Serbia. The dialogues were oriented from a localizing approach "to ensure that the diversity is embraced" ^[6]

After all the inputs of the dialogues were discussed, national leaders adopted the new global agenda at the UN Sustainable Development Summit September 25–27, 2015 in New York, USA with the title of " Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" ^[7], which contains 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of  sustainable development issues.

High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

The First High- Level Political Forum that was celebrated after the adoption of the New Agenda "the core UN platform for monitoring and reviewing the Agenda 2030" ^[8], took place in 2016. During that event, the UN-HABITAT, UNDP and the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments, coleaders of the localizing- dialogues during 2014/2015, organized a side event at the HLPF 2016 in order to raise awareness about the localization of the SDGs approach.

During the HLP of 2017, from 10-19 July, 2017, a delegation of local and regional governments, United Cities and Local Government (UCLG), on behalf of the   Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for the Post- 2015 Development attended the 5th High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) to report on progress on the SDGs at subnational level. The output document " national and subnational governments on the way towards the localization of the SDGs covers 65 countries, representing in total over 5.2 billion people, 70% of the world’s population and more than 400,000 local and regional government.  

The Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development (nrg4SD) together with the Organization of United Regions presented a report "SDGs at the Subnational Level: Regional Governments in the Voluntary National Reviews" [1] which collects the outputs of a consultation made to the 44 countries that presented the Voluntary National Reviews (VNR).

Implementing locally

As stressed in the Synthesis Report of the UN Secretary General, “many of the investments to achieve the sustainable development Goals will take place at the subnational level and be led by local authorities” ^[9] Therefore, the success of the SDGs achievement relies on the country's capacity of enabling national legal and political frameworks, at the same time that creating local and regional capacity to support the achievement of the SDGs at national level by means of action carried out from the bottom up.

As stated in the report of UNDESA "all partners expected to play a role must be given a seat at the table and feel engaged in the process". ^[10] For that reason, from the localization perspective, the SDGs framework allows to mobilize all the actors from all levels in pursuing sustainable development.

"As we all know, the 2030 agenda is automatically a local agenda. It is in cities, states, provinces, and rural communities where all 17 SDGs would come to live" Amina J. Mohammed, UN- Deputy Secretary-General.

Institutional arrangements at national level

The localization of the SDGs depends on the institutional arrangements for promoting, coordinating and reviewing the implementation of the SDGs of each country. Following the commented report presented by UNDESA; " Regional and local governments will clearly have to play a central role if the SDGs are to be achieved. Their ability to contribute will depend on developing effective intergovernmental systems and stronger capacities for all actors involved".Therefore, Local and Regional actors ^[11] advocate for "the integration of the subnational governments into the national mechanism that are responsible for the coordination and follow-up of the SDGs". ^[12]

Due to genuine characteristic of each country, it is difficult to collect in one specific model the perfect way to enable the better institutional framework, but according UNDESA "few general principles could guide this process".

• First, each country will have to determine its own SDGs priorities, which should be respected and supported.
• Second, many countries need more robust national frameworks to improve working relationships across government levels and among nongovernmental actors.
• Third, many countries need stronger subnational governments with greater capacity to contribute to sustainable development.
• Fourth, subnational reforms could be linked to the SDGs, which encompass virtually all of the features and goals of an effective intergovernmental system.

To understand the situation, an " overview of institutional arrangements for implementing the 2030 Agenda at national level" was presented by UNDESA which aims at taking stock of the various approaches countries are currently taking, while identifying common characteristics and common challenges".This report underlines the main steps undertaken by countries to initialize the process to implement the SDGs:

1. Institutional arrangements for implementing the SDGs
   1. Integrating the SDGs into national government
      1. Integrating and coordinating actions ( creating of new coordination entities/using or adjusting existing structures)
      2. Mainstreaming the SDGs in sectoral and other ministries
   2. Engaging local authorities
2. Engagement of parliaments
3. Public service and public administration ( transparence and accountability and supporting participatory decision-making)
4. Mobilizing civil society and the private sector
   1. Using existing institutions
   2. Promoting stakeholder participation through dedicated discussion, advocacy and consultation activities.
   3. Emerging trend on SDGs reporting by business companies.
5. Monitoring and review

Roadmap for localizing the SDGs at subnational level ^[13]

Aiming at supporting local and regional governments and their associations to implement and monitor the SDGs and to influence national policy-making with a view to create an enabling environment for action at the local and regional level, the Roadmap for Localizing the SDGs was launched.

The report was built within the framework of " the Virtual Platform for Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals which is a pioneering knowledge and information sharing platform promoted by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through ART, and the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat), which after having jointly co-led the Dialogues on the Localization of the Post-2015 Development Agenda decided to respond to the request of local, regional governments and stakeholders of providing concrete tools for the subnational implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

The Roadmap for localizing the SDGs: implementation and monitoring at subnational level offers general guidelines and strategies on five main thematic areas conceived as fundamental for the implementation of the SDGs at local level:

• Awareness raising: getting to know the SDGs at subnational level.
• Advocacy: including a subnational perspective in national SDG strategies promoting local ownership of national strategies. Many countries have already aligned their National Development Plan and some of them involving subnational perspective.
• Implementation: Setting, by each level of government, their own priorities in line with legal areas of responsibility, and to pursue them through local and regional plans and sectoral policies.  
• Monitoring: localizing SDG targets and indicators.

“To achieve the SDGs it is urgent to gather public authorities, local and regional governments, the private sector and civil society around a shared implementation strategy. The “localization” process of the SDGs and the role of local and regional governments is key if we want to achieve these goals by 2030". ^[14]Edgardo Bilsky, Director of Research at UCL

Localizing the SDGs approach

The localization of a country depends on the country's capacity of including subnational perspectives into national legal and political frameworks, and on the local and regional capacity of supporting the achievement of the SDGs at national level by means of action carried out from the bottom up. The approach used for implementing the SDGs at local level is different depending on the territory. For example, some of them focus on raising awareness while others in monitoring. Some national governments facilitate the localizing process through national institutional frameworks, while in others subnational governments and other actors are the ones which proactively behave.

• Brazil: Enabling national Institutional arrangement for localizing the SDGs

In Brazil, subnational governments are represented at the National Commission for the SDGs. Following the organizational document ^[15] "the subnational level are represented by the National Confederation of Municipalities of Brazil (CNM, in Portuguese), and the Brazilian Association of State Entities for Environment (ABEMA, in Portuguese). Furthermore, Brazil has a Ministry of Cities that recognizes how much the countries’ performance on the SDGs depends also on the engagement of local governments. Therefore, the National government has created a  roadmap to mobilize local and regional governments and to influence national policy making across the country. The national government is also running awareness campaigns and educational programs aimed at bringing the SDGs to the local population". ^[16]

• The region of Valencia (Spain): Localizing the SDGs from a regional perspective

The region of Valencia has published a document where it presents the commitment of Valencia to pursue the localization of the SDGs- The region of Valencia and the local implementation of the SDGs- "The SDGs would guide all of the Generalitat's policies and not exclusively the development cooperation ones. To that end, it has encouraged a series of innovative measures, including 1) the creation of official bodies to promote consistency of policy between different Government Departments (Consellerías); 2) actions to inform and raise awareness among citizens, and prepare policy makers for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; and 3) drawing up of these principles in the cooperation strategy, through a participatory means of devising a new Act, and reformulating its Master Plan. Throughout the process, emphasis has been placed on not simply including entities directly involved in development cooperation, such as the region's NGDOs, but rather a wide variety of Valencian social and economic partners".

• The city of San José as an example of how the SDGs localization goes beyond the establishment of strategies and plans

The San José city is an example of how the SDGs localization goes beyond the establishment of strategies and plans and it requires the direct engagement of everyone across neighborhood communities. Further than the creation of the city planning aligned with the SDGs  (Implementing the SDGs at the local level), the city wants to empower its citizens based on the idea that individuals need to understand and have the power to have a personal impact on the SDGs implementation process .The report presented by San José provides some historical context regarding sustainability initiatives in the city and discusses the partnership established in 2015 to evaluate current  policies and initiatives to align  the SDGs. It also provides a comprehensive mapping of the City’s General Plan to the SDGs and presents three initiatives (My Brother’s Keeper: San José, Smart City Vision and Environmental Sustainability Plan), including = a set of recommendations for how they could further align the SDGs. Furthermore, through the SDGs dashboard created by the Stanford University via interim solution, a series of geospatial and census-based datasets are used to better understand the current status of SDG implementation across the territory. This tool is part of the initiative “Data tools for the California Bay area: actionable intelligence for cities to support SDGs achievement” that uses available data at various levels of disaggregation, from the block level up to the metropolitan region in order to develop an actionable intelligence system at the city level to achieve the SDGs.

External links

References