Abstract
Agenda 2030 pursues a universal approach and identifies countries in the Global South and in the Global North that are in need of transformation toward sustainability. Therefore, countries of the Global North such as Germany have signed the commitment to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the SDGs need to be “translated” to the specific national context. Existing sustainability indicators and monitoring and reporting systems need to be adjusted as well. Our paper evaluates how three different initiatives translated SDG 11 (“Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable”) to the German context, given the specific role of cities in contributing to sustainable development. These initiatives included the official ‘National Sustainable Development Strategy’ of the German Government, a scientific initiative led by the ‘German Institute for Urban Affairs’, and a project carried out by the ‘Open Knowledge Foundation’, a non-governmental organization (NGO). This article aims to analyze how global goals addressing urban developments are contextualized on a national level. Our findings demonstrate that only a few of the original targets and indicators for SDG 11 are used in the German context; thus, major adjustments have been made according to the main sustainability challenges identified for Germany. Furthermore, our results show that the current contextualization of SDG 11 and sustainable urban development in Germany are still ongoing, and more changes and commitments need to be made.
Highlights
With the adoption of Agenda 2030 by the United Nations (UN) member states in September 2015, a new global agenda came into force that puts sustainability center stage [1]
As the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are divided into 169 targets and 232 quantifiable indicators, data measurement is challenging, especially since reliable data from the UN is only available for a few indicators
We provided an analysis of how different actor groups translated SDG 11 to the German context and the indicators that were used
Summary
With the adoption of Agenda 2030 by the United Nations (UN) member states in September 2015, a new global agenda came into force that puts sustainability center stage [1]. This includes the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an important step toward a more sustainable world. Issues such as governance, funding, the negotiation of emerging trade-offs, as well as the general character of global agreements and responsibility need to be considered [2] Another vital aspect is the question of how SDG implementation can be measured, and which type of monitoring systems are most adequate for this purpose. As the 17 SDGs are divided into 169 targets and 232 quantifiable indicators, data measurement is challenging, especially since reliable data from the UN is only available for a few indicators
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