
2 minute read
Localisation is way to achieve SDGs
from Project Update 2022
by Urban Update
AIILSG in collaboration with CITYNET under the project ‘Promoting Localization of SDGs in Cities through Capacity Building and Knowledge Sharing’, organised five webinars in a series ‘Localisation of SDGs’. In addition, Team Urban Update created a Localising SDG’s e-forum. Best practices, specific to the topic ‘Localising SDGs’ and information about webinars in the series were on the e-forum. As of May 2022, 117 informative articles, news pieces on the localization of SDGs had been covered by the team
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he webinars under this collaboration ranged on discussions of urban planners worldwide pushing for urban local bodies to focus on equitable and sustainable urban expansion that does not harm the environment. They suggested the countries globally to undertake measures and policies to inch closer to achieving the SDGs, and how urban development at large cannot be successful without factoring in inclusivity. The COVID-19 pandemic is being considered by many as a lesson for policymakers and world leaders. The transmissibility of the disease has made it immensely clear that without ensuring universal access to basic civic services for all, no one can be considered safe. These primarily include water, sanitation and health services. The first webinar in the series was conducted on June 18, 2021. The topic of the webinar was – ‘Localising SDGs and Role of Local Governments: Opportunities and Challenges’. The eminent panel of the event included Dr Pascaline Gaborit, Founder, Pilot4dev; Gaurang Rathi, Commissioner, Varanasi Nagar Nigam; Prerna Vijaykumar Mehta, Associate Director (Urban Development), World Resource Institute (WRI); and Abhilash Khandekar, Senior Journalist. They discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought the local and regional governments (LRGs) to the frontline and once again highlighted their importance. They noted that now that LRGs are working to coordinate activities in different spheres of public life, from mobility to security, and from health to sewage, national governments need to make them more independent in order to take decisions proactively.
The next webinar was organised in July on the topic ‘Making Urban Economic Development Sustainable’. The webinar discussed how city leaders and urban planners need to ensure that the economic and infrastructure development is integrated sustainably to cater to the growing urban population. Third webinar was conducted on ‘Building local resilience in post-COVID world’ in August. It talked about how globally, cities bore the major brunt of the pandemic as their health infrastructure almost collapsed, and therefore there is need for cities to augment the development of their medical infrastructure in order to become resilient and prepared for future pandemics.
Another webinar was conducted on September 28, on ‘Imperatives of Building Inclusive Cities’. Rushda Majeed, India Representative, Bernard van Leer Foundation; Sneh Gupta, President, Indiability Foundation; Arbind Singh, National Coordinator, NASVI; and Dnyaneshwar Mulay, Member, National Human Rights Commission constituted the panel and discussed how cities can come together to build inclusive spaces to achieve the SDGs, prevent future pandemics, battle climate change and global warming. The last webinar of the series was conducted on November 18 on ‘Building Cities & Conserving Environment with Decentralised Initiatives’.
As part of this collaboration, in addition to the webinars and e-forum, AIILSG developed and conducted a survey of 11 million-plus cities in India. The survey aimed to develop clear recommendations from local stakeholders on how to implement the agenda at the local level, analyse and define roles and functions of local governments and stakeholders in working towards the targets, identify capacity gaps of relevant stakeholders, and analyse participation and inclusiveness for the implementation process including local accountability mechanisms.