The United Nations Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for accelerated economic, social, and environmental transformation in the ten years left to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

As the core United Nations platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the 2021 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) to be held on 6-15 July will discuss ways to ensure a sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID-19 that puts us on track to realise the 2030 Agenda.

In this context, Regions4 presents the brief report “Regions Voice in UN reporting: An overview of Voluntary Subnational Reviews and other contributions to the 2030 Agenda”.

Since 2015, subnational governments have played a crucial role in localising the SDGs and successfully implementing them on the ground, strongly contributing to the monitoring of the global progress to achieve the Global Goals.

As part of Regions4’s work to support subnational governments to improve policy efficiency, inclusiveness and decision-making in their territories, the brief report introduces the opportunities and benefits offered by the Voluntary Subnational Reviews and showcases succesful examples of regions reporting progress on the 2030 Agenda. In addition, the document highlights the inspiring experiences of Wales, Sao Paulo and Catalonia that were shared at the Community of Practice Regions4SDGs.

The report aims to provide helpful insights for subnational governments to track SDG performance and identify achievements, challenges, gaps and critical success factors to make evidence-based choices to promote policy coherence.

About Regions4

As Organising Partner of the Local Authorities Major Group (LAMG) and member of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, Regions4 represents the voice of subnational governments in the global sustainable development fora, especially in the annual reviews of the 2030 Agenda at the United Nations High-level Political Forum (HLPF).

The Community of Practice Regions4SDGs is a collective and participatory project to support SDGs localisation by subnational governments. Based on peer-review, it acts as a platform for region-to-region exchange of experiences, mutual support, capacity building, and alignment of statements both at technical and political levels. It aims to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and strengthen territorial approaches, scaling-up regional pathways from isolated good practices to collective modalities of implementation, ultimately influencing more ambitious results in the national and international frameworks.

Further information

The report “Regions Voice in UN reporting: An overview of Voluntary Subnational Reviews and other contributions to the 2030 Agenda” is available at the Regions4 Knowledge Hub.

To learn more about the effective implementation of the SDGs, visit the Community of Practice Regions4SDGS.

For further information, please contact Ivy Moraes, Sustainable Development Manager at imoraes@regions4.org