Our members have a fundamental role in ensuring that Sweden contributes to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Two out of three SDGs require action at the local and regional level in order to be reached.
Focus is on the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. The commitment is strong and the opportunities are many. It is important that municipalities and regions enhance their knowledge and act more in accordance with the goals. Now we have something that will facilitate this, namely key figures and indicators allowing municipalities and regions to make comparisons between themselves and to monitor their progress towards the SDGs.
The Council for municipal analysis, RKA, has developed this set of key figures and all Swedish municipalities and regions can simply click online to access an open database for local and regional authorities to see how they are ranked in relation to others. I hope this will bring motivation for further development and improvements amongst our members.
Spending time reporting new data into the database is not necessary. The database use already existing data linking it to the SDGs, for example:
- The proportion of employees that are on long-term sick leave is linked to the goal for ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages (SDG 3)
- The amount of greenhouse gas emissions within the municipality’s boundary is linked to the goal for combating climate change (SDG 13)
In order to reach the SDGs and fulfil the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda, a great share of knowledge, commitment and leadership is required at all levels. It is so pleasing to see this amongst our members.
During 2019, 81 municipalities and 15 regions are participating in the project “Glocal Sweden”, a three-year awareness raising project for politicians and civil servants. The project is run by the Swedish UN Association, in collaboration with SALAR and with financial support from Sida.
By Vesna Jovic, 2 April 2019 CEO SALAR
In order to give more visibility to the Forum of Local Governments Associations, UCLG and CIB will publish columns by CEOs on our websites. These columns will cover issues (internal or external) which the LGAs are dealing with at that moment.
The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) represents the governmental, professional and employer-related interests of Sweden’s all 290 municipalities and 20 regions. SALAR is both an employers’ organisation and an association that advocates for local self-government and the development of regional and local democracy in Sweden and abroad.
Photo: Hans Alm/SALAR