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Box 4.12: Implementing sustainable development through Voluntary Local Reviews
More fundamentally, it is still unclear what sort of governance will emerge from the current crisis: stronger and more invigorated, with greater creativity and collaboration through multi-level partnerships, or further fragmented by institutional rivalries and financial burdens. public participation, data collection and policy design. Nevertheless, if not properly regulated, this increased surveillance could undermine democratic governance and human rights.
Another factor that has proved effective across a range of different contexts was the development of targeted, context-specific strategies to address the often highly localized spread of the virus. At the beginning of the pandemic, some governments adopted a universal countrywide approach, ignoring territorial differences in the diffusion of the virus and health care capacities. Once the shortcomings of this approach became evident, however, an increasing number of countries started adopting territory-specific approaches tailored to local infection levels and resources.
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As outlined throughout this chapter, the complexity of governance systems and their interaction with different social, legal, political and economic contexts mitigate against overly simplistic prescriptions on which approach delivers the best outcomes. Instead, what the research here has outlined is a range of considerations and potential ways forward for national and subnational governments to consider as they continue to hone their response and recovery to the pandemic. While the range of city and county contexts means there is no single approach that can or should be universally prescribed, it is clear from the very different examples showcased here that multi-level governance and an integrated approach generally help achieve the best results. Cooperating vertically (among different levels of government) and horizontally (between local governments and sectoral authorities), with an integrated and coordinated strategy that also includes municipal associations, health professionals, academics, NGOs and communities, is key to addressing the pandemic and implementing a meaningful recovery.
At the same time, though in varied and sometimes opposed ways, power at different levels of government has been rebalanced in the wake of the pandemic. In some countries, the failure of national leaders to respond quickly has reinforced the influence of subnational governments. In some cases, cities took the initiative in the immediate response to the threat posed by the health emergency; other cities received additional powers that had been voluntarily transferred from national to subnational levels of governments to address the crisis at the local level. In other countries, however, the national governments took the lead, recentralizing some powers from subnational governments in certain instances or acquiring extraordinary powers by declaring a state of emergency. However, at this stage, it is difficult to predict if this rebalancing of power will have long lasting effects on countries’ internal organization. Nor, importantly, is it always the case that one or other approach is best. Indeed, the pandemic has illustrated
Box 4.12: Implementing sustainable development through Voluntary Local Reviews
Currently 58 Member States submit Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) annually to ECOSOC to report on progress on the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This process of assessment and reporting are an essential element in monitoring country progress. However, an important catalyst for amalgamating city and local governments into national planning processes that intergovernmental bodies can support are Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs) — now being prepared or developed by over 1,000 cities and local governments in parallel to the VNRs. They report on progress at the local level towards SDG attainment and often use the 17 goals as a framework for local planning. Recognition of VLRs by ECOSOC at the HLPF could go far in elevating them as inputs to VNRs. In turn, VLR-VNR alignment could foster new ways of aggregating local planning for national economic planning and development.