Local and Regional Governments in the Follow-up and Review of Global Sustainability Agendas

Over the past three years, the global community has adopted several landmark decisions that are relevant to urban actors. These include the New Urban Agenda, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Agreement. This report addresses a central question of the post-Habitat III process and the World Urban Forum: How can the follow-up and review of the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda be supported and local and regional government’s interests better reflected in these processes?

Local and Regional Governments in the Follow-up and Review of Global Sustainability Agendas illustrates existing follow-up and review processes and provides recommendations on their further improvement and potential synergies. Better reflection of urban sustainability issues and substantial participation of local and regional governments and stakeholders in these processes are essential for effective implementation of these agreements. The authors argue that we need to strengthen synergies in the follow-up and review of these global agendas, and explore opportunities for a stronger involvement of local and regional governments and their partners in follow-up and review. They describe how local implementation capacities have to be strengthened and stress the importance of policy learning beyond data collection, reporting and review.

This joint report is published by adelphi and Cities Alliance. The team of authors consists of international experts from adelphi, the African Centre for Cities, the German Development Institute and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. It was commissioned by the Joint Work Programme on Cities in the Global Agendas of the Cities Alliance.