On Tuesday the 28th of March, UCLG and its Capacity and Institution Building working group (CIB) successfully hosted the first of a series of Voluntary Subnational Review (VSR) workshops that will take place in 2023. The workshop brought together representatives from local government associations (LGAs) and field experts to exchange on VSRs, as a tool to enhance dialogue between spheres of government as well as ownership of the SDGs among local and regional governments. During the workshop, LGAs’ representatives from 7 countries, namely Belgium (the Flemish region), Cambodia, Chile, Comoros, Romania, Rwanda and Tanzania, presented and discussed the progress of their VSR development.
The meeting was organized and moderated by UCLG, UCLG-CIB and the Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization (GOLD). The year 2023 becomes the 4th year that UCLG and CIB have been supporting LGAs with their VSRs through among others workshops. The event also presented itself as a great opportunity for UCLG to highlight their Massive and Open Online Course (MOOC) on VSRs, which provides guidelines, tools and space for exchange for LGAs to further enhance the potential of VSRs as instruments with which to increase LRG ownership of the 2030 agenda.
The aim of the workshop was to exchange experiences and knowledge between LGAs and field experts that are engaged in the preparation of VSRs in 2023 in 7 countries. The first part of the workshop consisted of presentations by the 7 countries. The presentations addressed the progress with regards the VSR and discussed the different challenges the LGAs face when writing a VSR. Hereafter, there was room for interactive exchange by all participants to discuss about how to address these challenges and obstacles that the countries face and discuss between teams and with the representatives of countries that developed VSR in previous years.
On Monday the 17th of April, UCLG will organize another online workshop on the survey . In light of the report that will be presented at the High Level Political Forum, the aim of the workshop is to emphasize the importance of reporting on SDG localization.
UCLG and CIB will organize another workshop to disseminate the survey that we launch year every day on SDG localization, the survey that is used to gather information for the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) report. More information on this workshop will follow.
On Monday the 17th of April, UCLG will organize another online workshop on the localization of the SDGs and the 2030 agenda survey developed by UCLG. The survey will contribute to a report presented at the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) and the aim of the workshop is to increase the ownership of the survey and the report. To learn more make sure to read the agenda of the workshop attached and visit UCLG’s survey page.