Localization enables alignment of local-level plans and actions with the 2030 Agenda
Post Date – 12:45 AM, Wed – 12/28/22
By Inigo Arbiol Oñate, Ander Caballero
In September 2015, the 193 UN Member States unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda at the General Assembly. This strategy document seeks to identify, understand and quantify the grand challenges facing our humanity.
From this, both public and private actors can develop strategies to build a fairer and more inclusive world in the medium to long term. At the same time, we must be able to take action that also has impact in the short term and weave alliances and synergies towards the SDGs.
Unfortunately, halfway through the international community’s agreement to implement the goals of the 2030 Agenda, the world is experiencing a confluence of old and new challenges.
To counter them, great powers have focused their foreign policy on fighting each other, and the social and environmental ramifications of conflict clearly show us the dysfunction of this foreign policy model.
Therefore, today more than ever it is necessary to advocate for the inclusion of new keys in international relations. To overcome state-dominated international relations, we must immediately incorporate sub-government on a massive scale.
These governments are the primary public institutions that design and implement strategies and policies that favor new political and economic models of sustainable global growth.
One of the fundamental elements that allowed us to arrive at this statement is that, since its ratification, the 2030 Agenda has provided us with an effective framework that allows us to work according to the same criteria, using a common language and from all levels of public administration.
local political groups
Seven years later, these measurements show us the unique ability of local political groups to transform sustainable development policymaking and implementation on issues such as civic engagement, fiscal policy, equity, urban planning, or integrated environmental management.
This process, known internationally as localization, can align local-level plans and actions with the 2030 Agenda.
On the other hand, it has a huge capacity to change the vision that each region interprets itself as an actor in local and global change.
Competitive advantages
There are many reasons why localization is essential and represents a huge competitive advantage.
First, the location allows local leaders with close ties to citizens to become agents of sustainable development.
Especially outside the big cities, we’re talking about people who are known to the public, who share personal, family and political references. They are people who know and participate in the same problems and challenges and the responses to them.
Second, this close relationship with citizens can have a quick and immediate impact on specific needs. This is something that commitments and actions at the national level (more strategic than tactical) often fail to achieve. These impacts lead to greater citizen participation in sustainable development models, from word to deed.
needs of each region
Third, localization makes it possible to align international commitments that define goals and objectives according to the specific needs of each territory, downgrading common languages in local agendas but sharing a consistent global mandate with multilateral forums.
Great national policy is like a large ship, capable of carrying a great deal of cargo, but slow to steer when necessary.
However, the position resembles a small fishing boat. Given its exceptional nature and adaptability to the territory, it is agile and easily corrects its course and adapts to the realities of the sea.
Fourth, it is impossible to implement international commitments on sustainable development without taking into account the different governance models that exist. It is especially important that power is shared, even exclusive, by local entities.
Localization is thus an opportunity to leverage sub-entities and promote coherence and effectiveness in multi-level and multi-stakeholder governance.
In fifth place is the local capacity to bring sustainable and inclusive development issues into public debate. It is much more difficult to reach citizens at the national level and communicate the relevance of sustainable development to all social, business or political actors.
The fact that today we go on to explain what are the SDGs or the 2030 Agenda is evidence of this, even though these were commitments our states made 7 years ago.
Participate in the process
Sixth, as a result of this public debate, the location allows us to measure indicators more precisely and transfer them into participatory accountability processes.
The greater the intimacy and impact of policies, the greater the need for accountability and the greater the sense of identity, legitimacy and affinity for those policies.
The study of location allows us to confirm that the aforementioned location advantages are added to the value of being able to internationalize sustainable and inclusive growth models that overcome current geopolitical tensions.
Cooperation between regions at the sub-national level has helped weave alliances among equals, create networks to overcome interstate tensions or the limitations of growing exclusionary populism, and empower us to achieve common and fundamental goals.
(Inigo A Oñate is Professor of International Relations at the University of Deusto, Spain. Ander Caballero is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University)
