Looking forward to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals enclosed in the 2030 Agenda, the city of Utrecht is stepping up to the task shaping its ongoing efforts framed within the “Utrecht: A Global Goals City” project. Since 2017, the city of Utrecht has pursued a multi-stakeholder approach towards creating a sustainable city which prioritizes the well-being of its citizens while remaining fully committed to the SDGs.

 A Global Goals City

Owing to its commitment to the 2030 Agenda goals, Utrecht has designed a strategic vision in which the goals are triple; 1). Promote local campaigns with which to raise awareness of the citizens regarding the existence of the 2030 Agenda; 2). motivate local stakeholders to undertake local SDG related actions and, lastly; 3). Creating and supporting local initiatives with which to connect to wider and international sustainable development challenges.

Working in partnership with the local foundation Utrecht4GlobalGoals the city of Utrecht has worked on fulfilling these objectives by localizing the SDGs through a bottom-up approach. Amongst the key developments undertaken so far, the most important are:

• Organize and support a local awareness-raising campaign together with Utrecht4GlobalGoals;
• Stimulate businesses to co-develop local and international SDG strategies and activities;
• Facilitate a local network to exchange knowledge and to communicate about sustainability initiatives in relation to the SDGs
• Build a public-private partnership to make an international contribution to SDG 11 in Uganda
• Develop local SDG indicators to align municipal policies with the SDGs

Measuring advances

The City of Utrecht and Utrecht4GlobalGoals have believed important not only to match Global objectives with local needs, but also to find a way to measure their impact and progression. To that end, the City has recently implemented a Socially responsible purchasing policy, which ties public procurements and purchasing to SDG related issues such as people, planet and prosperity, while at the same time, developing evaluating mechanisms and tools with which to use local data to discover successful policies or areas for improvement.

Utrecht, to conclude, has been at the forefront of innovative and exemplary measures tying local development with Global 2030 Agenda goals. In its efforts, the City of Utrecht has been recognized for its positive role in the Dutch voluntary national review on the SDGs, and in the UCLG report to the UN High-Level Political Forum, which took place in 2018. Furthermore, the project was also shortlisted for the 2018 "Huangzhou Award".

Want to know more?

For all these reasons, and many more, follow this link to find more details on Utrecht’s inspiring approach to localizing the SDGs

Click here! Utrecht: a Global Goals City