How to align city strategies with the sustainable development goals

Source: apolitical | Alexandra Hiniker, executive fellow for Sustainability Initiatives, Carnegie Mellon University

Cities: embrace the common language of the SDGs to measure, coordinate and amplify progress

Cities are playing a growing role in global sustainable development. Already, there is a dizzying array of international frameworks that they are encouraged to employ (Paris Agreement, C40 Green and Just agenda, LEED certification, etc.). Adapting to yet another framework may seem an unnecessary extra step for cities that have long been tackling the range of challenges addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

However, for city governments, the SDGs are not a rigid blueprint. They don’t come with a prescribed set of metrics that requires a significant undertaking to collect. Instead, the SDGs act as a common language for cities to share success, identify areas for improvement and learn from others. It also enables communication at all levels — from hyper-local to global.

Step 1: Crosswalk the data

Crosswalking is the process of compiling and unifying data under one rubric. In this case, it involves dipping into a city’s existing strategies and mapping them to the SDGs.

In New York City (NYC), public servants kicked off the crosswalk by mapping each of the 17 goals and 169 targets to the city’s activities in 2015. This served as a foundation to developing our SDG programming, which led to increased internal cooperation as well as policy exchanges with partners around the world.

Step 2: Conduct a voluntary local review

In NYC, crosswalking was validated through a concept I created in 2018 while overseeing NYC’s Global Goals programme, which I coined a “Voluntary Local Review” (VLR), modelled on Voluntary National Reviews.

For NYC’s first Voluntary Local Review, I took the 2018 OneNYC city progress report and reorganised the information into the SDG framework, incorporating the work of city agencies addressing issues not reflected in the city’s sustainability strategy. Confirming this mapping with the relevant agencies was critical to gaining their buy-in, and helped establish new working relationships.

Step 3: Map the voluntary local review directly into new strategy documents

The outcomes of the VLR were then incorporated into the follow-on strategy: OneNYC 2050 in 2019, which also includes a mapping to the SDGs directly in the document.

Getting the conversations out of meeting rooms and into local communities to see firsthand how the goals were being implemented opened up new ways to discuss solutions to long-standing shared challenges.

A city does not need to adopt new metrics or collect additional data to conduct a VLR. However, through the process of identifying the programmes it’s undertaking to address the SDGs and laying out the metrics used to measure success, a city may identify gaps and decide to address them by either collecting new data or establishing new policies. My hope for the Voluntary Local Review is to foster conversations about what we measure, and why, not to compare and contrast data points in wildly different contexts.

Step 4: Build a shared language with city agencies

Before you swamp city agencies with a list of goals and targets for alignment, take the time to conduct an initial assessment of how their work aligns with the SDGs.

For example, before reaching out to the NYC Parks Department about the GreenThumb community garden programme, I researched materials and had informal discussions with staff about their work, which I mapped to the SDGs. Their feedback was an excellent opportunity for us all to reflect on the broader impact of their programme.

Step 5: Go global

With city agencies, city government and the international community using a shared framework, you can now communicate initiatives at a global level.

In the GreenThumb example, we invited relevant international community members to visit community gardens and discuss how community gardening programmes in their respective countries helped achieve a range of Global Goals. This process was similarly applied to other city programmes and agencies. Getting the conversations out of meeting rooms and into local communities to see firsthand how the goals were being implemented opened up new ways to discuss solutions to long-standing shared challenges.

My hope for the Voluntary Local Review is to foster conversations about what we measure, and why, not to compare and contrast data points in wildly different contexts.

The SDGs can also help facilitate policy exchanges with non-governmental entities. Following a panel discussion on SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), NYC invited the International Labor Organization (ILO) to testify at a hearing about improving pay equity in NYC. Through a relationship established using the framework of the SDGs, concrete examples from other countries informed NYC’s pay equity policies.

Any city can find value in the SDGs

One barrier that many local authorities ask about is the costs involved in localising the SDGs. Although some cities have hired additional staff, we instead adopted the SDGs as a tool used by current city employees responsible for enhancing the city’s sustainability plans and strategies. While knowledge of the SDGs is helpful, it’s more important that staff understand how the city works.

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