Local and regional monitoring for responsive policy action

5.2 Local and regional monitoring for responsive policy action

As soon as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted, the international community also committed to reporting and monitoring on their achievements. However, the progress made in the disaggregation of data to ensure that no one and no territory is left behind has so far been extremely limited. Most of the indicators established by the UN IAEG-SDGs are difficult to transpose to local realities as they are defined to measure national development policies. Most of the attempts carried out by different organizations have also required reviews, proxies and alternative indicators.

National governments, which periodically report at the UN HLPF, often have difficulties compiling a comprehensive collection of subnational indicators. Many countries are, however, making substantial efforts to strengthen their monitoring processes and to collect localized data (e.g. Belgium,32 China, Colombia,33 Indonesia,34 Kenya, South Africa,35 and Sweden,36 among others). Nevertheless, the majority of national systems lack disaggregated data that fully grasp the nature and extent of the main challenges currently facing different people and territories that are struggling to embark on the path to sustainable development and who are often at risk of falling behind.

Some LRGs have already started to develop monitoring and evaluation tools. Many cities, and particularly those engaged in the development of VLRs (see Section 3, above), and regional governments (in Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Germany and Spain, among others) are now developing their own monitoring systems. National LGAs (in Brazil,37 Flanders,38 Germany,39 Netherlands,40 Sweden41) have built tools to develop subnational monitoring and support through training.42 Furthermore, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, with support from France, has developed the Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities, which includes a set of indicators that are not always aligned with the SDGs. Some other initiatives have proposed data for a specific category of cities. For example, Metropolis, the association of major cities and metropolitan areas, with the support of the London School of Economics – LSE Cities, has collected a limited set of indicators,43 while the World Council on City Data currently holds data about over 100 metropolitan cities worldwide.44

International institutions like UN-Habitat, through initiatives such as the New Urban Agenda Platform45 and the City Prosperity Initiative,46 help monitor the SDGs based on the collection of data through a sample of around 600 cities from regions all over the world.47 The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN),48 with the support of academia and leading experts, has monitored extended selections of cities in different countries (including the United States, Italy and Spain). The SDSN’s publication on India includes both of its levels of subnational government: the state and city levels. The European Commission has launched the Joint Research Council’s Handbook to help cities to develop their own VLRs and with the selection of relevant indicators.49 The OECD, through the Territorial Approach to the Sustainable Development Goals initiative, has put in place its own system of indicators in order to ensure comparative analysis between a limited pilot group of regions and cities.50

All these initiatives are, however, still too limited in their scope and capacity to strengthen the policy-making process at the local level. All in all, there is a demonstrated need to provide LRGs with adequate human, technical and financial resources and capacities to enable them to develop sound indicators and monitoring mechanisms. This is a pre-requisite for them to have the capacity to contribute to national reporting processes at the same time as developing better, and more inclusive, policies at the local level.

The majority of national systems lack disaggregated data that fully grasp the nature and extent of the main challenges currently facing different people and territories.