On the 7th March of 2019, at Paris, numerous stakeholders met at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) headquarters to advance in its program on "A territorial approach to the SDGs". This meeting, which constituted the 1st OECD Roundtable on Cities and Regions for SDGs follows the initiative launched during the UN High-Level Political Forum in July 2018.

The meeting brought together 140+ representatives from a wide range of cities, regions, national governments, European Commission bodies (DG REGIO, DG DEVCO, JRC), alongside international organisations (UN-Habitat, UNESCO, UN Global Compact, World Bank), the private sector (Shell, AXA, Airbus, Arup), networks of cities and regions (UCLG, Eurocities, CEMR, Platforma, C40, Committee of Regions) and other stakeholders such as the World Council on City Data, World Citizens Association, Brookings Institution, Social Progress Imperative, SDSN, various water institutions and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Stanford

The overall objectives of the meeting were to (1). Provide a multi-stakeholder forum to share knowledge, experience and best practices; (2). Advise cities, regions and national governments in taking the needed steps for effective policy reforms; (3). Provide a global co-production mechanism to design a localized SDG indicator framework to measure cities and regions’ performance; (4). Discuss preliminary findings from ongoing OECD pilots on the localization of the SDGs, and; (5). Provide for a coordination tool across different initiatives on localizing the SDGs from cities, regions, countries, civil society, academia, private sector, donors or philanthropy.

Acting upon these objectives, the discussions focused on four key themes:

• the use of the SDGs in strategic visioning and planning at regional and city levels;
• the SDGs as a framework to manage complementarities and trade-offs;
• the role of the private sector and civil society in the 2030 Agenda;
• the need for an indicator framework to track progress on the SDGs in cities and regions. 

More information

More information on the 1st OECD Roundtable on Cities and Regions for SDGs can be found here: Highlights

A full list of the participants can be found here: List of participants

The list of presentations can be found here: Presentations

The list of issue notes can be found here: Issue notes

The 2^nd OECD Roundtable on Cities and Regions for the SDGs will be held in November 2019 (exact date and location remains to be clarified).