The Global Observatory on Decentralization and Local Democracy (GOLD) is launching, from March to the end of April 2018, a series of consultations on the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). GOLD addressed a survey to local and regional governments, associations, civil society and the private and academic sectors to identify the most significant data on the localization of the SDGs throughout the world and the role of local and regional governments. The information obtained will be essential to develop a report that highlights the contribution of local and regional authorities in localizing the SDGs. The report will be presented at the 2018 HLPF next July.
Ever since the World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders and the adoption of the Bogota Commitment – prior to the UN-Habitat III Conference (Bogota, October 2016) – local and regional governments have committed to promoting the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the set of global agendas adopted by the United Nations in 2015-2016.
The localization of the SDGs was adopted by UCLG as a strategic priority for the 2016-2022 period at the UCLG Executive Bureau of Madrid in 2017, taking into account that, as a global network, it is our duty to assume an active role in guaranteeing the exchange of information and promoting commitment to the SDGs and the other global goals.
To analyze progress in this process, the United Nations and its member states present annual reviews on SDG implementation, which are then debated during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), held every year in New York. 64 countries presented their report in 2016 and 2017, and 48 will do so this year.
UCLG takes part in this process with the aim of providing the initiatives of local and regional governments with adequate visibility and prominence. UCLG will present a report on the role of Local and Regional Governments in the localization of the SDGs at the Forum of Local and Regional Authorities within the framework of the 2018 HLPF, co-organized by UN-DESA, UN-Habitat and the Global Taskforce. In this occasion, emphasis will be placed on SDG 11, promoting sustainable cities and settlements (as well as the right to decent housing). This report will support one of UCLG’s strategic priorities, the Wave of Action on the Right to Housing, under the motto of “housing is a right, not a commodity”.
In order to prepare these reports, UCLG needs the active participation of all of its sections, national associations of local and regional governments and member cities. It will also be supported by the Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD) and the Observatory on Sub-National Government Financing and Investment. We also ask for collaboration of civil society, academia and partnering UN agencies, such as UN-Habitat, UNDP and other international bodies and long-time partners – such as the OECD and Cities Alliance, among others.The goal of the Report of Local and Regional Governments on the localization of the SDGs before the HLPF is to acknowledge the policies and restless work that local governments, territories, communities and civil society are promoting and putting in the process of implementation. It is part of our advocacy endeavor for the recognition of local and regional governments’ role and centrality in global governance processes.
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The Bogota Commitment is supported by the Manifesto on The City of 2030 and in the global surveys which took place in the framework of the Global Report on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD IV) and the deliberations of the Global Taskforce.
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