5.1.3 The role of national governments and international partners in the mobilization of LRGs In many countries in the sample, political initiative by national governments is still essential. Wherever this impulse transforms into a nation-wide commitment and political will to include all stakeholders and governance levels, the localization process has been significantly easier. For example, in those cases in which the national government has actively promoted outreach and campaigning aimed at local governments (e.g., Finland’s ‘regional tours’ on the SDGs, coorganized with cities and regions), supported the adoption of covenants or agreements for implementation (e.g., the National Pact the on the achievement of the SDGs adopted in Costa Rica on 9 September 2016, or the agreements at the provincial level in Argentina), organized workshops aimed specifically at local governments (e.g., in Togo), fostered policy alignment between the SDGs and local development plans (e.g., in Colombia and South Africa), or ensured the proactive involvement of LRG associations in monitoring and follow-up processes (e.g., in Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, as mentioned above), participation of LRGs and local stakeholders has been notably higher. Especially in countries with a more centralized system of government, action by national government is usually the main driver of LRG participation. In Jordan, the government presented a roadmap to foster ownership of the SDGs at the sub-national level (i.e., governorates and municipalities). In Madagascar, the government supported an awarenessraising campaign through the media – Madagate – aimed specifically at the local level. On the other hand, in many countries several UN agencies have also played a very important role to support the participation of local and regional governments. UNDP, in particular, is working with national LRG associations in various countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, supporting awareness-raising efforts via fora and workshops (e.g., Ethiopia and Uganda), dedicated programmes and training (e.g., Bangladesh, Costa Rica, and Honduras) or assisting regions and municipalities in the elaboration of their local plans and making them compatible with the SDGs (in Brazil, Ecuador or Mexico, for example, in the states of Chiapas and Jalisco). The UNDP-ART initiative and UN-Habitat, which in partnership with the Global Taskforce have co-led the UN dialogues on the localization of the SDGs worldwide, have also contributed to the dissemination of the localization approach in various regions. As a consequence of these efforts, several bilateral cooperation schemes and multilateral development banks are now considering the localization approach as a key strategic tool to convert their global agendas into sub-national initiatives and actions, thus improving policy coordination by adopting multi-level coordination and governance systems.20 It is worth noting that, in many countries of this sample, political pressures or electoral agendas have somewhat delayed the process of integration of the SDGs into local political agendas (in France, Portugal or Nepal, for example). On the other hand, in other countries political change within the institutions has actually been an opportunity to promote the alignment of policy with the SDGs in new governmental plans and strategy – e.g., in Brazil and Colombia. As this section has shown, global outreach awareness-raising efforts are still quite limited. Among the 65 reporting countries, SDG awareness among local and regional governments is high and consistent in Europe (and, in particular, in Northern Europe and Germany) and Latin America (Brazil and Colombia stand out in this regard). Strong awareness is limited to only a
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20 Asian Development Bank, ‘Localizing Global Agendas in Multilevel Governance Systems’, The Governance Brief, Issue 30, 2017.