The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Research Project: Implementing the 2030 Agenda locally through urban development

Cities, towns, villages and counties in a data- and guiding principle-based dialogue on urban development-related aspects of global sustainability

Project briefing

  • Status Ongoing
  • Started July 2022
  • Programme ExWoSt

When implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), municipalities also participate with self-analyses (Voluntary Local Reviews -VLRs). However, an increase in the quality of implementation, an explicit focus on urban planning- and urban development-related aspects as well as better comparability between them are necessary. Which data, indicators and locally recognised guiding principles are suitable as a basis for this?

Background

With the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations agreed to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an evidence-based and comprehensible manner. To this end, the Member States have been submitting national reports, so-called Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), to the annual High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) since 2016. Municipalities are also increasingly involved in this implementation process with self-analyses, so-called Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs). In addition, from 2022 and based on the Global Urban Monitoring Framework, UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, will produce four-yearly global reports on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. It was drawn up at international level in 2016 and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. On the European level, the New Leipzig Charter has been available since 2020. It describes, among other things, the urban dimensions of sustainable development and the principles of good urban development policy.

The urban dimension of sustainability is explicitly expressed by SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) but also by many other SDGs. In order to make greater use of them for local development and to underline their importance at national, European and international level, the following improvements are needed:

  • improving the quality of VLRs in quantitative and qualitative terms;
  • aligning them explicitly with urban planning- and urban development-related aspects, and
  • improving their comparability with each other and their connectivity to other reporting formats, e.g. VNRs.

In this way, an understanding of sustainable urban development is achieved that integrates municipal structures, spans national levels and also exceeds cultural boundaries within the cross-municipal dialogue. Both data and locally recognised guiding principles (e.g. integrated urban development concepts, spatial development strategies, sustainability resolutions) are used for this purpose.

Objective

  • The project enables selected cities, towns, villages and counties in Germany as well as in European and international partner countries to carry out self-analyses (in the form of VLRs) of their local potentials and development paths which are based on the 2030 Agenda. The signing municipalities of the 2030 Agenda (see map) form one of several reference groups for the selection of municipalities.
  • The project strengthens the international cross-municipal dialogue on data- and guiding principle-based sustainable urban development. SDG 11 is a central reference point for urban development and urban planning in this context.
  • With their self-analyses in the form of VLRs, cities, towns, villages and counties contribute to the national and international monitoring of SDGs (e.g. through VNRs, UN-Habitat global reports, the HLPF) taking better account of the specific needs and potentials of municipalities than so far. Urban planning- and urban development-related aspects of the local level will be better and more permanently integrated into the overall assessment of the SDGs.

Project participants

Besançon (France) (in French)
www.besancon.fr

Cottbus/Chóśebuz (Germany)
www.cottbus.de

Eisenach (Germany)
www.eisenach.de (in German)

Eltville am Rhein (Germany)
www.eltville.de (in German)

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (United Kingdom)
www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk

Lüdenscheid (Germany)
www.luedenscheid.de (in German)

Mannheim (Germany)
www.mannheim.de

Munich (Germany)
www.muenchen.de

Niebüll (Germany)
www.niebuell.de (in German)

Prefeitura Municipal de Maringá (Brazil)

Toyama (Japan)
www.city.toyama.lg.jp/kurashi/foreigners/1010403/1010404/index.html

UN-Habitat Data and Analytics
https://unhabitat.org/knowledge/data-and-analytics

Verband Region Rhein-Neckar (Germany)
www.m-r-n.com

Contractor

Contact us

  • Dr. André Müller
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division RS 3 "European Spatial and Urban Development"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-2341
    Email: andre.mueller@bbr.bund.de

  • Dr. Andrea Jonas
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division RS 2 "Urban Development"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-1254
    Email: andrea.jonas@bbr.bund.de

  • Antonia Milbert
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division SR 3 "Menschen und Regionen im Wandel – Subjektive und objektive Indikatoren"
    Phone: +49 30 18401-2256 and +49 355 121004-6801
    Email: antonia.milbert@bbr.bund.de

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