Local voluntary reports: the implementation of sustainable development goals in northern and southern cities

Abstract

Given the increasing relevance of cities in the global agenda, we examine the voluntary local reports from six northern and southern cities around the world to understand their approach to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. We examine not only the framework but also the content of the reports to identify the differences in reporting on sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the factors that may explain why these cities have voluntarily submitted their reports. The research has revealed a wide diversity in the structure and content of the voluntary local reports, demonstrating that there was little to no institutional framework used to submit and compile the reports. Although the reports of northern cities tend to align with previous strategies for the SDGs, the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in southern cities has had a more significant impact on the adoption of monitoring and evaluation mechanisms at the local level. We have found that both international bodies and national policies have an influence on the development of sustainable practices at the local level. Our analysis also indicates that all cities have some sort of international exposure either through their participation in transnational municipal networks or through their collaboration with international organizations, especially in southern cities, which can explain why these cities (and not others) are more active in the adoption of SDGs at the local level and in the submission of voluntary reports.

Introduction

The adoption of the Local Agenda 21 in the 1992 Rio Summit marked a milestone as it placed cities and citizens at the forefront of sustainable action, resulting in an increase of local sustainable practices at the local level worldwide (Barrutia et al. 2015; Fenton and Gustafsson 2017). The Local Agenda 21 gave rise to several initiatives that promoted sustainability programs in urban areas, such as the best practices database in UN-Habitat, the Cities for Climate Protection within ICLEI, the International Center for Sustainable Cities, the City Net by the Economic and Social Commission for the Asia and Pacific Area and the Urban Environmental Forum, to name a few (Chen 2004; Smardon 2008). Although in 2000, the millennium development goals (MDGs) adopted a 15-year plan to improve the development levels in southern countries (Klopp and Petretta 2017; Halisçelik and Soytas 2019), the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 put the whole international community on the road to increased resilience and a more sustainable life on Earth.

The focus of this article is on cities, which are critical stakeholders in regard to the adoption of sustainable practices at the local level (Parnell 2016; Klopp and Petretta 2017; UN Habitat 2020). Cities are increasingly receiving the attention of academics and global recognition as places where issues involving sustainability, climate change mitigation and urban resilience are of critical importance (Hoornweg, Sugar, and Trejos Gómez 2011). Indeed, the inclusion of cities within a stand-alone goal in the 2030 Agenda was the result of a global urban campaign to redouble awareness of urban challenges and their need for more funding and visibility (Lucci 2014; Klopp and Petretta 2017). The 2030 Agenda acknowledges cities as potential key drivers of sustainable development and recognizes their increased power in global governance (Parnell 2016; Fenton and Gustafsson 2017; Valencia et al. 2019). The report of the United Nations High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2013) defined very well their role when it stated that ‘cities are where the battle for sustainable development will be won or lost’.

Despite the existence of previous initiatives to advance sustainable development, many of them were not always synchronized, monitored or evaluated in detail, which led to several missed opportunities to learn from experiences in cities and delayed the creation of comprehensive frameworks for action (Fenton and Gustafsson 2017). A great deal of research has indeed focused on those previous attempts to promote sustainable development. Early studies have focused on measuring and ranking from the outside the implementation of MDGs and SDGs in countries and cities (Simon et al. 2015; Halisçelik and Soytas 2019; Arfvidsson, et al. 2017), or how tools such as the 100RC boosted resilience among cities and helped them to align with the SDGs (Croese, Green, and Morgan 2020). Other studies propose new approaches to global prosperity beyond the SDGs (Moore 2015) or underline the problems that may arise from using indicators (Klopp and Petretta 2017). There is a strand of the literature which focuses on how SDGs should incorporate specific goals, targets and monitoring mechanisms to do a better evaluation than the one done for the MDGs in the absence of adequate data systems (Lu et al. 2015; Sarvajayakesavalu 2015; Edouard and Bernstein 2016) and others that point to the need to use more informal ways to implement and monitor the SDGs at the local level (Arfvidsson et al. 2017; Weymouth and Hartz-Karp 2018). Several reports highlight the difficulty in accessing reliable data and the risk of measuring what has already been measured as opposed to what is relevant in cities (Lucci 2014; Simon et al. 2015; Arfvidsson et al. 2017; Sanchez Rodríguez, Ürge-Vorsatz, and Barau 2018).

Several studies have pointed to the difficulty of comparing cities and countries from the north and the south mainly because of the lack of data and indicators in southern countries (Lucci 2014; Arfvidsson et al. 2017). As a matter of fact, part of the literature on the performance of northern and southern countries shows that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s countries were ahead of other countries in the implementation of SDGs in target prioritization and monitoring arrangements, indicator-based assessments and benchmarking (Simon et al. 2015; Allen, Metternicht, and Wiedmann 2018).

Apart from academic authors focusing on measuring the levels of accomplishment of MDGs, SDGs and sustainability in countries (Halisçelik and Soytas 2019; Raszkowski and Bartniczak 2019), as well as in cities (Staley 2006), or how slums can contribute to reaching their goals , a wide range of international organizations and research institutions have published reports, guidelines, handbooks and toolkits to assess and accelerate the implementation of SDGs at the national level. Most countries have published their monitoring assessments in the SDGs Knowledge Platform, where their steps taken towards sustainable development can be found. Allen, Metternicht, and Wiedmann (2018) include a review of at least eight instruments for evaluating SDGs developed by organizations such as the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) or the Atkinsson Group on how to evaluate SDGs. The Institute of Global Environmental Stages (IGES), UN-Habitat and Eurocities, also have platforms to promote the SDGs at the national, regional or local levels, which has resulted in different publications (Fernando et al. 2020; UCLG and UN Habitat 2020; Eurocities 2020).

The acute need to support sustainable practices in cities and especially those in southern countries is one of the reasons that have led us to examine how these cities are implementing SDGs and whether they are using the implementation of SDGs as a window of opportunity for transformative changes within society in urban environments (Fenton and Gustafsson 2017; Sanchez Rodríguez, Ürge-Vorsatz and Barau 2018).

Based on the UN voluntary local reports (VLRs) website, the IGES website and the UCLG and UN-Habitat (2020) Report, between 2016 and 2020, 61 VLRs were recorded (see Figs 1–3), out of which, 59% are from northern cities, most of the European (and in particular, Spanish). The other 41% of the total VLRs submitted are from southern cities, having Latin American cities with a greater number of reports submitted than African and Asian cities. Figures 1–3 show that there are countries where cities seem to be more engaged with VLR reporting (e.g. Spain, Japan, Brazil or Kenya) and that although the number of VLRs submitted by northern cities is higher (36 against 25), southern cities have reported in similar numbers in the last 2 years. It could be assumed then, that there is a general acceptance of the relevance of implementing SDGs at the local level.

By 2017, some cities and regions in northern and southern countries had already submitted voluntary reports (e.g. Wallonie in Belgium, Sydney in Australia, Cauayan in the Philippines or Barcarena in Brazil). However, the formal beginning of the VLR process was in July 2018 when, during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), the first-ever ‘Local and Regional Government Forum’ was presented as the official space for the LRGs constituency (Ortiz-Moya et al. 2020). The withdrawal from the Paris Agreement by Trump’s Administration is likely to have given impetus to some American cities which rapidly committed to the principles of the Paris Agreement (in June 2017), and to New York City specifically when it announced the release of the world’s first ‘Voluntary Local Review’, a document that was submitted to the United Nations and in which it reported on city-level progress on the SDGs (IISD 2018). The cities of Kitakyushu, Shimokawa and Toyama also claim to be the first ones to officially submit their VLRs (Ortiz-Moya et al. 2020).

Cities that submitted their VLRs between 2016 and 2020 were varied, from small cities such as Canterbury (UK; 55 000 inhabitants), Santana de Parnaíba (108 875) and Besancon (France; 116 676), to large cities such as New York City (8.3 million inhabitants), Mexico City (8.4 million) and Sao Paulo (12.18 million), which reveals that cities can be engaged with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the submission of their voluntary reports irrespectively of their size.

Aim and methodology

The goals of our research are to determine the main differences and similarities in the implementation of SDGs in the cities examined regarding the implementation of the SDGs. We also want to identify if there are any drivers or circumstances that help explain the submission of VLRs in those cities. As a result, our research provides an overview of the SDGs prioritized by cities, the way they are implementing SDGs, as well as the reasons behind the adoption of SDGs at the local level.

To obtain a general perspective on sustainable action at the local level we reviewed the academic literature on the role of cities in the promotion of local sustainable development to identify the main trends, shortcomings and gaps identified in previous research. Because 2019 was the year with the most submitted reports, we established this as the best year of the reports to examine, and also because we considered that those would be more developed and comprehensive than the first VLRs submitted. We decided to choose three cities in northern countries and three in southern countries to get a more balanced analysis; we did not have any preference for them other than selecting cities from different countries (and continents if possible). Another consideration that we took into account when selecting the cities was the style and appearance of the VLR, which we wanted to look similar, thinking that could make their comparison easier. We included the state of Oaxaca in our sample, despite it not being a city, to prioritize the diversity of submissions examined. As a result, the southern cities examined are Buenos Aires (Argentina), Oaxaca (Mexico) and Santana de Parnaíba (Brazil), and the northern cities are Hamamatsu (Japan), Helsinki (Finland) and New York City (USA).

After the selection of cities, we conducted our research looking for some specific information: the reasons cities gave for submitting a VLR, the reporting methodology, the main SDGs reported and how the 2030 Agenda had been implemented in each city (including the identification of previous local sustainable actions), and the local strategy used to achieve the SDGs. All of this information was extracted mostly from the VLRs. One of the difficulties found in our comparison was the heterogeneity in the reports examined. For instance, not all cities report on the same SDGs, which makes it harder to find general considerations. What we found was that while some cities reported on all SDGs (Hamamatsu), others (New York City, Helsinki) reported only on the SDGs prioritized by the HLPF for the year 2019, which were SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 13 (climate action) and SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Buenos Aires and Santana de Parnaíba reported on those SDGs that they had previously decided to focus on at the local level (see Fig. 4).

Hamamatsu is unique, for it is the only city reporting on all 17 SDGs, showing a transversal effort to achieve sustainable development. NYC’s report is also noteworthy because its report served as the basis for others such as those of Helsinki, Santana de Parnaíba and Buenos Aires. And the case of Oaxaca is hardly comparable to others since it did not report on specific advances linked to the SDGs but instead used its VLR to explain the local strategy that was to be adopted for the achievement of sustainable development.

Throughout the article, we refer to places studied as southern and northern cities/countries. Although the term is not perfect, we find it is less hierarchical than its predecessors—‘third world’ or ‘developing countries’—and this way we also acknowledge the pejorative undertones that can be attached to them (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2013; Wolvers et al. 2015).

What makes cities report?

One of the similarities found in all six VLRs examined is that in all cases they had a history of promoting sustainable development either at the local or national level which may have served as an impetus to implement the SDGs in the cities. But, equally important is the fact that the six cities examined have some form of international exposure, either through their participation in transnational municipal networks (TMNs; mainly for northern cities) or through the presence of international institutions in their territories (in the cases of southern cities). Notably, all cities examined, northern and southern, are looking for the establishment of an international reputation for their sustainable development initiatives, which can also be an important factor in explaining why these cities and not others are among the first ones worldwide to submit their reports. In addition, local initiatives cannot disengage from national policies, that have seeded sustainability approaches at the local level.

Hamamatsu adopted the vision of Hamamatsu as a ‘creative city’ with a ‘bright future’ in 2015 as a 30-year plan to foster the industry, the economy, education, lifelong learning, the environment and energy (Hamamatsu City Council 2019). At the national level, Japan established the UN Trust Fund for Human Security in 1999 (Sachs 2017) and adopted the ‘SDG Future Cities’ program, which seeks to support selected local governments in their SDGs implementation and then extend their success to other cities (MOFA 2018). Helsinki adopted a city strategy in 2017 to become the ‘most functional city in the world’ by creating a more international, agile, service-oriented and attractive Helsinki (Helsinki City Council 2019). At the national level, Finland has actively promoted sustainable development, including a monitoring and an evaluation system for attaining the UN’s goals (Helsinki City Council 2019). The New York City report is based on previous strategies adopted, which included the report ‘OneNYC: The Plan for a Strong and Just City’ and the launch of the Global Vision Urban Action Platform in September 2015 (United Nations 2015). It is likely that the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement by Trump’s Administration in June 2017 pushed New York to aim for being the most sustainable big city in the world (NYC 2017, 2018), although the city had a previous consolidated strategy for sustainable development.

Similar to these northern cities, several southern countries including Mexico, Argentina and Brazil focused on the promotion of sustainable development at the national level. For instance, Mexico started to create a solid environmental framework in the 1970s, creating institutions, laws and specific instruments to achieve sustainable development (Pere Suñer and Peña del Valle Isla 2008), and it was also one of the most successful countries at implementing the 21 Agenda through the creation of Advisory Councils for Sustainable Development (SEMARNAT and UNDP 2004). The fact that the two most important conferences on sustainable development (Rio 92y Rio + 20) took place in Brazil represents a high national commitment to the agenda (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2019). Meanwhile, Argentina has worked at the national level to implement, monitor and evaluate the MDGs in the country since 2000 (Brisson and García Conde 2014).

The participation in TMNs, the presence of international institutions and the prospects of liaising with other municipalities help explain the submission of VLRs. New York City is part of different TMNs, including the ICLEI, the Global Covenant and C40, and also hosts many international agencies, which provides it with an opportunity to liaise with the UN diplomatic community and to be more aware of the need to promote the SDGs. Helsinki is also a member of different TMNs (EU Covenant of Mayors, ICLEI), and has adopted an ambitious goal to become ‘the most functional city in the world and stand out as a pioneer in implementing global responsibility locally’ (Helsinki City Council 2019). Indeed, the mayor of Helsinki offers the example of New York as a city that has access to cooperation opportunities with the United Nations and presents the prospect of improving Helsinki’s opportunity to interact with this international organization as one of the reasons to publish their VLR (Helsinki City Council 2019). Hamamatsu is a member of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Intercultural Cities Programme by the Council of Europe, and was selected as one of the 29 ‘SDG Future Cities’ by the Japanese government (Hamamatsu City Council 2019).

The three southern cities are quite similar in their aim of gaining international visibility and have a record of liaison and collaboration with international organizations and other cities through their participation in TMNs. A good example of this is the case of Buenos Aires, which begins its VLR stating that the city will be one of the first in Latin America to present its voluntary local review at the High-HLPF, thus showing a willingness to be a role model for other cities at the regional level. The establishment of the United Nations Development Program’s SDG Accelerator Lab in Buenos Aires has contributed to advancing the implementation programs to achieve their SDGs. Moreover, Buenos Aires, a member of the C40 network, actively promoted the first summit of mayors of the G20 (Urban 20)—held in 2018—to initiate a debate amongst the main cities of the world pursuing sustainable development. Their participation in international discussions is seen as a way to position Buenos Aires among the cities at the forefront of localization at a global level, which provides an opportunity for cities to play an essential role in creating a sustainable development vision (Buenos Aires City Council 2019).

Although Oaxaca is not part of any TMN, the Government of the State has a technical cooperation agreement with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to integrate the 2030 Agenda into the planning framework, to develop a mechanism for the monitoring of the implementation at the municipal level, and to integrate a perspective of sustainable development on the use of the resources (Oaxaca City Council 2019). Additionally, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) collaborated with the state government to design the report. These alliances show how Oaxaca is benefitting from the engagement with international institutions.

The participation of Santana de Parnaíba in TMNs is not as broad as in other cities included in our research. However, Santana is part of Mercociudades (Mercocities), a transnational regional network. As seen in the cases of Buenos Aires and Oaxaca, the city also received the support of international organizations through Gaia Education and the UNESCO Global Action Program on Education for Sustainable Development to accelerate the local implementation of SDGs 3 (Good Health), 4 (Quality Education) and 16 (Peace and Justice). In its VLR, Santana affirms that ‘as a result of an arduous work, which brought together an internal committee and various public forums, Santana de Parnaíba was the first city in Latin America to formally commit to Unesco (…) to deliver it’s VLR [translated from Portuguese by authors]’, and shows a willingness to promote the adoption of SDGs in other cities (Santana de Parnaíba City Council 2019).

The impact of the 2030 agenda at the local level

Our assessment of the VLRs submitted by northern and southern cities revealed a diversity of approaches to the reporting of the SDGs. Although some presented a review of the implementation of all or some SDGs through very specific governing programs (including specific budgets and concrete actions), others reported in a very superficial way. It is important to acknowledge that the absence of information on some SDGs does not mean that those cities are not working in those areas. In fact, our review of all VLRs reveals that most cities addressed all of the SDGs despite the absence of explicit reporting. As stated above, we speculate that this can be due to the prioritization of some SDGs by the HLPF. Figure 4 shows the SDGs cities examined have reported on in their 2019 VLR. Oaxaca is not included in the figure since it did not report on any specific goal.

The heterogeneity in the reports examined can be partly attributed to the difficulties of local governments in coordinating, monitoring and reporting on their advances on SDGs (UN Habitat 2020), or to the inexistence of VLR guidelines from the UN, which are not even an integral part of the United Nations review process for the 2030 Agenda (Ortiz-Moya et al. 2020). The analysis of the VLRs of Hamamatsu, Helsinki and New York shows that these cities had adopted previous plans where specific problems (a high percentage of immigrant population, poor language skills or racially segregation), as well as opportunities (local resources, cultural and population diversity), had been identified at the local level. This way, VLRs facilitate the alignment of the SDGs with problems previously identified. New York’s voluntary local report is an excellent example of how eight goals are identified—a vibrant democracy, an inclusive economy, thriving neighborhoods, equity and excellence in education, a livable climate, efficient mobility, modern infrastructure and healthy lives—and then aligned with SDGs 4, 5, 8, 10, 16 and 17 (New York City Council 2019).

Helsinki, in its Helsinki City Strategy, focuses on three themes in its VLR: securing sustainable growth, developing services and responsible financial management. Each of these areas has its own goals and the city reports only on those SDGs prioritized by the HLPF to then note how those SDGs align with the themes previously identified in the city strategy. The same applies to Hamamatsu when it identifies the creation of a multicultural society, the promotion of a local-oriented economy and sustainable forest management as the pillars of the city’s action plan and then aligns them with the SDGs.

In the case of southern cities, it was the adoption of the 2030 Agenda that shifted the city plan and led to the incorporation of a systematic monitoring mechanism. For instance, although Argentina had a city plan focusing on social integration, human scale, enjoyment and creativity, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda significantly influenced the identification of priority targets, monitoring indicators and metrics. Indeed, once the 2030 Agenda was adopted it became the central strategic decision to promote sustainable development in the city (Buenos Aires City Council 2019). In Oaxaca, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda has led to a process to reform the State Planning Law to ensure the development of SDGs in the next planning processes. To accomplish this, the local government has created a State Council to coordinate the design, execution and evaluation of political strategies and programs, as well as to monitor the progress of SDG (Oaxaca City Council 2019). Finally, Santana formalized its commitment to the 2030 Agenda with the creation of a Municipal Working Group in charge of updating its databases to ensure the awareness of the necessary information needed to implement and monitor local advances (Santana de Parnaíba City Council 2019).

Same goals, different approaches

The level of detail in each report varies from city to city. New York City’s report is the most extensive and detailed of all; it includes information on the context, the progress and the actions that will be undertaken to achieve the SDGs promoted by the HLPF, as well as a review of most of the targets settled for each goal. Despite the fact that Hamamatsu reports on all SDGs, the report is very much linked to previous local strategies, and indicators on how SDGs will be monitored are hardly mentioned. Helsinki’s case is similar to that of Hamamatsu: it is very focused on the link between each SDG and previous policies adopted to develop economic growth or reduce inequalities, but it does not include references on how the SDGs will be monitored.

Oaxaca is completely different from any of the other cities analyzed since its VLR cannot be considered a report on the implementation of its SDGs. In fact, despite ‘Voluntary Subnational Review’ being the title of the document, it is only a ‘preliminary version’ where the government of Oaxaca explains the tools, bodies, challenges and lessons learned to enable a local structure that can roll out the 2030 Agenda (Oaxaca City Council 2019). Both Buenos Aires and Santana de Parnaíba include an overview of each of the SDGs and include indicators on their monitoring. Although the latter uses a color-based system to assess the performance of different targets, the former includes some specific indicators for some of the targets and projections on how those indicators should evolve to achieve them.

The approach to each specific goal by cities reveals that different priorities are depending on where cities are located. For instance, in the case of the three northern cities, efforts in SDG 4 (Quality Education) focus on giving children and young people the opportunities to learn, live and ensure that the entire population, especially foreign nationals (in the case of Hamamatsu and Helsinki) and children from all races (in the case of NYC), are given access to education, access to an excellent school and lifelong learning. For instance, ‘given the increase in trouble in daily life in communities due to differences in lifestyles, (…) Hamamatsu City has positioned education and support of the next generation as a priority’. In fact, in all three cases, there is an emphasis on using education as a way to reduce social exclusion through the teaching of the predominant languages of the country (i.e. Japanese, Finnish and English). The number of services and initiatives to support education, employment, or eradicate discrimination in the three northern cities is overwhelming, and these go from improving school facilities or supporting LGBTQI+ students, to the promotion of artificial intelligence-based learning or campaigns to increase the enrollment rate for foreign children.

Although southern cities are focused on improving the quality of the education of the population in general through improving digital education, innovation, collaborative learning, teamwork etc., as well as with the creation of new education infrastructures (schools, vocational training centers), the focus seems to be in reducing inequalities or achieving gender equality in the overall population and not within specific groups of population (immigrants, or population of a specific ethnicity): ‘In Buenos Aires, we work to offer the tools and spaces that promote the comprehensive learning process of our neighbors, as responsible citizens committed to the development of our city’ (Buenos Aires City Council 2019), or ‘it is also essential to commit to maintaining and expanding training for professionals in education (…), as well as implementing and expanding public policies that encourage and enable the inclusion of young people in technical courses’ (Santana de Parnaíba City Council 2019).

Reporting on SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) also offers some insightful differences. Although northern cities focus on integration into national lifestyles, the focus in southern cities is on ensuring the rights of minorities. Social exclusion and inequality are approached by Hamamatsu, New York City and Helsinki with better access to information and education, improvement of digital skills and projects on multiculturalism and inclusivity. An example is Helsinki’s Development Plan for Immigrant Education 2018–2021 to ‘support families who recently moved to Finland, particularly in the transitional phases of education (…) and to ensure that young people with an immigrant background receive improved multilingual support’ (Helsinki City Council 2019). Another example is in New York City: ‘[we] will strengthen our reputation as a welcoming city for individuals of all documentation statuses, and help all immigrants integrate into the civic, economic and social fabric’ (New York City Council 2019). Hamamatsu focuses on the problem of the aging population leading to the increase in support and service needs, as reflected in its VLR: ‘the population of persons employed in farming over the age of 60 has risen to 76% of total farmers, causing the industry to come face to face with issues including the aging society, and lack of successors/labor force’ (Hamamatsu City Council 2019).

Buenos Aires and Oaxaca have high levels of foreign or indigenous populations and their SDGs emphasize the rights of citizens. Buenos Aires focuses on a wide range of programs and initiatives to embrace diversity and the visibility of the LGBTQI+ community. In Oaxaca, ‘the sense of belonging of indigenous and Afro-Mexican groups is a fundamental factor in the measurement of statistics since self-identification as part of a specific group plays a very important role in the census’ (Oaxaca City Council 2019). With 65.7% of its population identified as indigenous, the city promotes ‘inclusion with social development’ as one of its five thematic axes in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and includes indigenous people, rights protection and gender equality as the transversal policies of their State Development Plan (Oaxaca City Council 2019).

Another example that illustrates different approaches to the implementation of SDGs involves SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Although southern cities prioritize the strengthening of institutions through the promotion of more transparency and accountability from public institutions, cities in the north focus on the strengthening of civil society through different means. Helsinki focuses on strengthening civil society through anti-bullying campaigns, the prevention of domestic violence and of substance abuse, the increase of the representation of the students/young population and the participation of civil society through very strong use of participatory models. Buenos Aires opts for promoting transparency and accountability through the platform ‘Open Government Ecosystem’ in which citizens can find information on the different projects going on in the city. As stated in its VLR, ‘these initiatives respond to a common vision aimed at generating improvement in the quality of public services, relationships of trust with residents in public policy processes, increasing their participation in decision-making processes’.

To address SDG 8, all cities address specific problems identified at the local level, and all of them attempt to attract investments and increase employability among the population. Hamamatsu supports the elderly in finding employment opportunities. New York City focuses on adopting policies to build an inclusive economy, training New Yorkers for the jobs of the future and expanding the safety net that enables workers and labor unions to have a greater say and more decision-making power (New York City Council 2019). Helsinki and Buenos Aires strive to increase their competitiveness and productivity and to position themselves as regional hubs for telecommunication companies. Both cities offer numerous programs and initiatives to boost entrepreneurship as well as promote innovation and employability. As for Oaxaca, the city only acknowledges a strong relationship between the 2018 budgetary programs and SDG 8, but without reporting on its implementation.

As reflected in Fig. 4, most cities examined do not specifically address SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) in their VLRs. Only Santana de Parnaíba and Hamamatsu make some references to this SDG. The latter reports different plans and targets to create a network-type urban structure connecting residential, industrial and natural areas while adopting plans to reduce the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis, thus addressing target 11.3 (enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management), and target 11.5 (reduce the number of deaths and people affected by disasters; Hamamatsu City Council 2019). In the case of Santana de Parnaíba, the implementation of the 2030 Agenda appears to be directly linked to the application of the Smart City concept, which is seen as a tool for being more energy-efficient and innovative with the urban infrastructure. It also appears to be linked to the promotion of urban, environmental and social regulations to decrease the number of informal urban settlements, thus relating to target 11.1 (ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services; Santana de Parnaíba City Council 2019).

Present in all cities is some sort of action regarding the environment, either with references to Climate Change (SDG 13), Life below Water (SDG 14) or Life on Land (SDG 15). In these goals, cities have included information as diverse as how to protect biodiversity, how to green cities, how to reduce emissions, or how to act on urban heat islands. For instance, Buenos Aires commits to increasing the use of clean and efficient energy and to create new public green spaces as a way of addressing climate change and increasing biodiversity (Buenos Aires City Council 2019). Helsinki will promote a vegetable-based diet as a way of reducing its carbon footprint. Its VLR also contains information on the stormwater program to maintain biodiversity, and secure regional and local drainage, as well as the introduction of a ‘green factor’ to ensure that plots have a sufficient share of green surface area (Helsinki City Council 2019). Another example is that of Hamamatsu, which has developed ‘green breakwaters’ to reduce the risk of flash floods and landslides by maintaining and expanding the forest capacity to replenish groundwater, while actively promoting the sustainable management of forests within the municipality (Hamamatsu City Council 2019). Meanwhile, New York City intends to end the reliance on fossil fuels, mostly by electrifying the city, and also points to the implementation of projects to mitigate coastal flood and physical risks, e.g. with the increase of green and natural infrastructure, or the adoption of legislation to require new buildings to be net-zero energy emitters (New York City Council 2019). Given that in 2022 the HLPF will review SDGs 14 and SDG 15, it is expected that future voluntary local reviews will make a stronger emphasis on these goals.

Conclusions

Our analysis of the adoption of SDGs in northern and southern cities illustrates a wide diversity in the structure and content of the VLRs. The lack of consistency in reporting hinders the ability to evaluate the efficiency of local city VLRs on regional and global scales, although this lack of consistency can also give cities the flexibility needed to adapt general goals adopted at the international level to very specific circumstances at the local level. As exemplified in New York City, Helsinki and Hamamatsu, the linking of local development plans to the SDGs appears to be the preferred method to boost local sustainable development under the 2030 Agenda. In the cases of southern cities, the adoption of VLRs has contributed to the creation of institutional frameworks necessary for the implementation of the SDGs (Oaxaca), and to improve the implementing and monitoring mechanisms of SDGs (Buenos Aires, Santana de Parnaíba).

Our research indicates that cities that have submitted their VLRs have some sort of international exposure either through their participation in TMNs or through their collaboration with international institutions. These cities appear to be active in the adoption of SDGs at the local level and the submission of voluntary reports. The commitment of international institutions to the promotion of sustainable development, specifically in southern countries, continues to be relevant and needed if the aim is to engage cities in local action towards the development of SDGs. The fact that most cities have reported on HLPF’s prioritized goals also reveals the influence this specific international body can have on helping cities follow a roadmap to implementing the 2030 Agenda at the local level.

The fact that cities are submitting their reports to different platforms (the UN and IGES’) reduces the opportunity to learn from one another. In contrast, the sharing of reports on these platforms contributes to the adoption of the SDGs that could stimulate transformative changes at the local level in the long run, as revealed in the cases of Buenos Aires and Santana de Parnaíba. Apart from striving for better policy integration, peer learning and accountability to citizens (Ortiz-Moya et al. 2020), the VLRs examined to demonstrate that cities seem to be taking ownership of the SDGs, in line with the findings of previous research (Croese, Green, and Morgan 2020), and that the acceptance of the SDGs at the local level can stimulate the adoption of monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, the identification of new priorities and the creation of new institutional bodies to promote sustainable practices at the local level.

We have also identified different approaches to the implementation of SDGs between northern and southern cities. Northern cities seem to approach SDG 4 (Quality Education) by preventing social exclusion through the promotion of a common language, whereas southern cities focus on reducing education inequalities by consolidating public policies and infrastructures. Northern cities focus on integration into national lifestyles as the way to approach SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and southern cities emphasize the need to ensure minority rights. In regards to SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), northern cities focus on promoting more transparency and accountability, whereas southern cities focus on strengthening civil society. The approach to SDG 8 is similar in all cities.

The sample of cities examined, although small, has given relevant information on the potential that the promotion of SDGs at the international level has in boosting sustainable practices, climate change policies and resilience at the local level. It has also shown that, as pointed out by previous reports and research (Valencia et al. 2019; UN Habitat 2020), cities are key actors in the global effort of implementing the 2030 Agenda. The involvement of local governments in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Agenda is necessary since it is at the local level where social, economic and political policies have the biggest impacts. The adherence of national governments to the 2030 Agenda, the participation of cities in TMNs and the active collaboration of international institutions with local governments seem a fruitful and promising way to enhance the implementation of SDGs at the local level, to share experiences, create new methodologies, systematize best practices and help address the challenges in monitoring, reporting and access to data that remain.

Although our research cannot lead to identifying general differences between northern and southern cities beyond the cities we have examined due to the small sample used, our findings are in line with those that use larger samples and have pointed to the heterogeneity of the VLRs as well as the opportunity for SDGs that the engagement of local governments provides (Ortiz-Moya et al. 2020). Considering the fact that it has only been 3 years since the submission of the first official Voluntary Local Report, future research should continue exploring the huge potential that the implementation of the SDGs has to transform cities, to boost climate action and increase the visibility of cities and municipalities in the international arena.

Acknowledgements

The authors greatly thank Mark J. McDonnell, editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Urban Ecology, for his continuous patience, support and suggestions during the edition process of this article.

Conflict of interest statement. None declared.

Data availability

Supporting information is available from the authors on request.

References