In the past few years, UCLG submitted a report on the voice and actions of local and regional governments on SDGs and their implementation at the yearly High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development. Between 2016 and 2019, this Towards the Localization of the SDGs-report provided a platform to highlight the efforts of local and regional governments to implement the global agendas, serving as a collective and territorialized counterpart to the reports of national governments - Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs).
Pilot reporting initiatives in Costa Rica, Nepal, Kenya and Mozambique
For its fourth edition, to be launched during the UN’s 2020 High Level Political Forum (HLPF), UCLG plans to take a step forward in the engagement of local and regional governments in reporting processes worldwide. The 2020 edition of Towards the Localization of the SDGs will complement the methodology that has been deployed to elaborate previous editions – being surveys, direct consultation with its members and collaborative research) with pilot reporting initiatives in 5 of the countries that will be reporting to the HLPF in 2020.
The set-up of these pilot reporting initiatives is two-fold:
1) UCLG will actively assist national local government associations to prepare their contributions to their countries’ VNRs, thereby strengthening their capacities to actively partake in the reporting processes.
2) UCLG will encourage national local government associations to develop their own local reporting processes and help strengthen the necessary capacities to do so.
The initiative is already beginning to take shape in Costa Rica, Nepal, Kenya and Mozambique and it is expected also to be implemented in Ecuador, where local government associations and experts are being mobilized to kick-start the reporting and capacity building processes.
The pilot initiatives should contribute to enhance local and regional governments’ ownership of national and local reporting processes and at the same time nurture this year’s reporting to the UN HLPF. CIB members are encouraged to support these efforts and, where possible, to support similar initiatives in other countries that will be reporting this year.
Do you want to be associated? Please let us know by sending an email to uclg.cib@vng.nl