Voluntary Local and Subnational Reviews: catalyzing global alliances for the localization of the SDGs

Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, local and regional governments (LRGs)’ involvement in monitoring and reporting on SDG implementation has expanded to all regions, as did the support of international institutions. Over the past two years, the total number of Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs) available worldwide has tripled (from approximately 40 VLRs in June 2020 to more than 120 in January 2022). In the same period of time, local governments associations (LGAs) from 14 countries, from different regions, have reported on the progress of their members in localizing the SDGs through Voluntary Subnational Reviews (VSRs), which together represent more than 16,000 local and regional governments. In 2022, the LGAs from 10 countries committed to prepare a VSR, among the 45 countries which will be reporting to the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2022.

While VLRs are developed by individual LRGs and circumscribed to a specific city or region, VSRs are produced by LGAs based on inputs from all their members, therefore offering a country-wide analysis of subnational efforts for the localization of the SDG. VLRs provide first-hand information about the way in which LRGs are leading the way in the implementation of the SDGs, aligning their policymaking to the goals and targets, engaging citizens and local stakeholders, and increasing accountability and transparency. VSRs are powerful levers for creating a comprehensive, nationwide and multi-level approach to governance related to the monitoring and reporting of the SDGs. They contribute from the local level to the VNR processes. A clear sign of this is that most of the VNRs from countries in which LGAs have produced a VSR or VLRs have explicitly taken this subnational reporting exercise into account. Together, these two modalities of SDG reporting from the local level are becoming more and more widely recognized as inspiring and influential tools for stimulating bottom-up transformations. However, these efforts should be accelerated to boost the involvement of a majority of LRGs in all regions with the support of global local government networks and international institutions.

This session would be a good opportunity to discuss ways to bring the VLR and VSR processes and partners closer together, to share their progress, challenges and results in terms of methodology and advocacy, so as to strengthen the capacities and resources of both LRGs and LGAs. VLRs and VSRs have indeed the same objective: to highlight the progress of the LRGs in the localization of the SDGs to make their efforts visible and to foster a “whole of government” and a “whole of society” approach to achieve the SDGs.