Localized SDG Indicator Framework

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held a technical meeting on the Localized Indicator Framework for the SDGs. The meeting was convened under the OECD’s Program for a Territorial Approach to Sustainable Development Goals, which involves nine cities and regions in Latin America, Europe and Asia as pilot projects.

The OECD launched the Territorial Approach to Sustainable Development Goals Program at the 2018 session of the United Nations High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). The program recognizes the crucial role of cities and regions in supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, the commitment of local and regional governments is essential to achieve 65% of the 169 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. Cities and regions play a critical role in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and many leaders and mayors are able to promote policies that focus on sustainable development. In this context, the program aims to help cities and regions develop, implement and monitor strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The program helps cities and regions promote a territorial approach to sustainable development goals through three main approaches. First, the program measures the position of cities and regions in relation to the national average and their peers. The program is developing a tailored and localized indicator framework that will be tested in different contexts. Second, the program encourages multi-level dialogue between levels of government to achieve consensus on the roles and responsibilities of different levels of government and approaches that can be strengthened.

Approaches also include peer-to-peer dialogues between cities, regions and national governments, as well as the participation of city / center networks and stakeholder groups. Third, the program will analyze and discuss local SDG stories and practices; identify lessons learned in terms of process, results and incentives; and share these best practices and lessons learned to facilitate more general learning about how cities and regions can support the achievement of the SDGs.

Following the launch of the program, it organized the first OCED Round Table of Cities and Regions on Sustainable Development Goals on March 7, 2019, in Paris, France. The roundtable brought together more than 140 representatives from cities, regions, national governments, the private sector, international organizations and other key stakeholders to identify challenges and trends in locating the SDGs. Participants shared the experiences and conclusions of the pilots of the initial program and highlighted the SDGs as a tool for strategic vision, planning and budgeting in cities and regions. Cities and regions explained how they included the SDGs in their development plans and aligned their strategies on the SDGs. They have also used the SDGs to help manage complementary and trade-offs at the municipal and regional levels.

• In the United States, the cities of Los Angeles, New York and Pittsburgh adopt the SDGs as a planning tool.
• Kitakyushu, Japan, explores the links between economic and environmental dimensions in building a green city, wind power generation and ecotourism.
• The roundtable supported the development of a framework of indicators to track the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals in cities and regions and recognized the role of civil society and the private sector in the 2030 Agenda.

The framework that was subsequently developed uses the common OECD / EU definition of cities and regions and aims to enable cities and regions to compare with their peers and national averages. The framework aims to maximize international coverage and comparability by using the OECD’s territorial statistics for the SDGs, while collecting and producing SDG indicators for regions and cities.

In order to provide information on the proposed indicator framework, experts and stakeholders met for a technical meeting on 14 May 2019. Participants discussed issues related to indicator coverage and acknowledged the importance of disaggregated data. to identify and address geographic disparities.

Source: SDG Knowledge Hub.