Search Results (3)

This paper examines how local governments monitor the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through voluntary local reviews (VLRs), focusing on localised practices from 2016 to 2024. Given the crucial role of local authorities in SDG implementation, the research aims to analyse differences in monitoring approaches and indicator usage across various types of local governments worldwide. The analysis involved 120 VLRs, using both quantitative methods to assess the number of indicators per goal and semantic clustering techniques to explore thematic patterns. Results show that cities are the most active in SDG localisation, especially for goals aligned with urban governance, such as Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities) and Goal 4 (Quality Education). Some goals, such as Goal 15 (Life on Land) and Goal 17 (Partnerships), are less frequently monitored, reflecting challenges in translating national objectives to local contexts. Semantic clustering highlighted both strong alignments and gaps in SDG indicator usage, particularly for overlapping goals. The paper underscores the need for more tailored, context-specific indicators for local authorities to effectively monitor SDGs, while highlighting the leadership role that cities play in this process. Full article

Accelerated urbanization causes an increasing number of city dwellers, insufficient and overburdened infrastructure and services, and negative environmental impacts and climate change impacts. Measuring the city’s progress toward sustainability is essential to support decision-making and policy development. This study aims to establish an assessment and monitoring method of sustainable development goals at the city level, focusing on identifying indicators that are compatible with the city context to update and monitor progress toward sustainability. A review of the literature on sustainability assessment methods and tools is presented. A comprehensive framework for city sustainability assessment and a checklist of indicators. Amman city in Jordan is suggested. A Voluntary Local Review (VLR) report of Amman was presented to the United Nations in 2022. The report reviews Amman’s progress toward achieving the SDGs; however, it lacks clear and a quantitative assessment of the city’s sustainability, particularly SDG 11, which this paper seeks to address. The checklist survey questions were formulated according to the sub-indicators of the UN-Habitat SDG indicator metadata. The checklist was distributed to respondents from the Municipality of Amman and related organizations to the VLR. The respondents evaluated the sub-indicators of Goal 11 and gave performance level scores in three levels: low, average, and optimal. The sum of the indicator values is quantitatively presented in tables. The findings reveal that the indicator values of the city sustainability assessment framework, as applied in this paper, can be adjusted within the characteristics and constraints of the local context in a two-year observation period to provide updated data for decision-makers regarding the current status and future implementation of sustainability agendas. Full article

Around the world, cities are on the front lines of sustainable development. They are responsible for more than 70% of global carbon emissions. Many of these cities are experiencing dangerous levels of pollution, underemployment, and health disparities. Since 2015, 193 countries have endorsed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), intended to help address a wide range of challenges affecting cities and ultimately secure the resources for their next generations. All states are expected to present the national progress towards the SDGs through a Voluntary National Review (VNR). Despite the importance of the cities within this framework, only a handful of them worldwide have actively begun to review and assess progress towards these SDGs on a city scale. This paper seeks to develop a Voluntary Local Review (VLR) framework to assess and evaluate the progress of cities towards contributing to the SDGs. This framework has been developed by localizing the international and national frameworks to measure the performance of cities as they advance towards achieving the SDGs. Such a framework can serve as a tool for benchmarking progress on different aspects of sustainable development and help urban planners and policymakers prioritize policies and actions to improve urban quality of life. This framework is applied to monitor and evaluate the progress of the city of Buraidah in Saudi Arabia, as it strives towards achieving the targets of SDG11 (“Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”). Full article