How do European cities tackle inclusiveness?

Whilst many cities and regions have engaged with processes of local implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, there is considerable variation in how, and to what extent, communities have tackled the principle of 'Leave No One Behind'. Differences emerge in several dimensions and they translate in distinct operationalizations of this principle which deserves to be highlighted to account for the specific outlook of each city and region. First, results from an assessment aimed at understanding to what extent the principle of “Leaving No One Behind” is featured in European cities’ mission statements towards 2030 and related policies and, when possible, budgets will be featured. Then, among the many dimensions of vulnerability, particular attention will be devoted to extreme poverty related to housing inadequacy and unaffordability. Therefore, the presentation of two other research projects will follow. The first focuses on homelessness and the second on informal settlements in European cities. For both research topics on the local SDG monitoring, data and methods will be highlighted, bringing to the discussion different approaches and fields, as social science, new data and techniques, i.e. remote sensing and earth observations. These inputs and findings will be presented by experts in sustainable development, inequality, housing, statistical and Geospatial data and methods (e.g., earth observations techniques) concerning hard to reach population groups. The guiding questions of this event will be:

• What are the challenges in the design and implementation of local policies for marginalized and vulnerable groups (e.g., measurement issues, invisibility, multi-dimensional vulnerability)?
• How can we effectively measure and monitor homelessness and informal settlements in European cities?
• How could we elaborate better policies to improve the well-being of all the population, contributing to truly ‘leaving no one behind’?
• How can local authorities use the available geospatial and statistical data and methods to better inform their policies targeting hard to reach population groups?