Abstract
City action is critical to achieving global visions for sustainability such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, SDG ‘localisation’ is complex procedure, with divergent outcomes depending on context and diverse city processes. This paper considers the operational challenges faced by city actors in taking on the SDGs, and subsequent implications for initiating local (and global) sustainability transitions. We analyse emergent approaches to SDG localisation within the Asia–Pacific, using a policy analysis framework (transition management) to assess transformation potential. We find that SDG localisation can influence urban sustainability, but effective implementation requires sufficient data, resourcing, and guidance—which are not readily, nor equally available to all city governments. City-to-city peer learning can accelerate SDG uptake, but realising the transformative ambition set out by the SDGs will require an approach to localisation that clearly demonstrates why and how any city government can and should engage with global sustainability frameworks.
Highlights
As the world grapples with the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other socio-economic disruptors such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (Corbett and Mellouli 2017; Thwaites et al 2020), city governments are emerging as agents of change: well-networked, community-oriented, and primed to transform the urban agenda (Parnell 2016; Satterthwaite 2016)
The results presented below show that both approaches rely heavily on strategic elements to spearhead city-level engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whilst tactical elements were considered important, but secondary mechanisms
This study sought to understand the mechanisms used by cities to start engaging with the SDG localisation process and some of the challenges involved in transitioning from initial engagement to actual implementation
Summary
Cities are critical drivers of global change They produce 80% of global economic output (UNDP 2016), consume 70% of global resources and energy supply (UN-Habitat 2019), and, relatedly, account for 75% of human-induced carbon emissions (UN-Habitat 2020). Throughout the twentieth century institutionalised nation state multilateralism provided the primary mechanism for addressing global problems, with varying levels of effectiveness and efficiency (Parnell 2016). Foremost amongst these multilateral institutions is the United Nations (UN), which put forward Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (hereinafter the 2030 Agenda) as the preeminent framework for steering international development efforts. Efforts to accelerate implementation of the SDGs throughout the 2020s in a ‘Decade of Action’ have been derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic (Thwaites et al 2020)
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