Updates on the global Campaign for a stand-alone #urbanSDG
A global campaign in support of a stand-alone #urbanSDG was launched in September 2013. Over 175 cities & 40 partners including UN-Habitat, UCLG, ICLEI, C-40, Metropolis, Communitas and Cities Alliance support the campaign for a stand-alone SDG. With the new C-40 Chair’ requesting to its members to sign on to the #urbanSDG campaign, we’re starting to get serious traction globally
The #urbanSDG campaign website was visited by over 6,000 visitors last month. We would encourage you to visit the site, register to support the Campaign and encourage other like-minded institutions to join in. Every member counts, especially if they are willing to write in to the OWG co-chairs to support this as Mayor Eduardo Paes from Rio did very effectively on behalf of C-40.
We made our public debut at the UN General Assembly OWG session on 6 & 7th January 2014 and made a strong impression on the UN member states, UN agencies and urban partners. You can see this on YouTube. 120 UN member States on Sustainable Cities were represented and their video & written statements are on our website.
By Aromar Revi
The comprehensive approach of the SDSN to the SDGs has been both appreciated and strategic in a challenging OWG debate. Integration between an urban & rural SDG, by using the complementary SDSN framing that links sustainable agriculture & rural prosperity with urban sustainability & resilience and the meeting of other critical development goals on poverty, health, education, energy, water and environmental sustainability.
The SDSN city indicators work is proceeding very interestingly: we have at least one ‘charismatic’ city from five continents involved in building an multi-dimensional #urbanSDG framework at city level: Istanbul (Europe), Durban & Accra (Africa), Rio (SAm), New York (NAm) and Bangalore (Asia) are working closely to develop the comparative city indicators. The early results presented to the OWG comparing Bangalore and NYC were an important part of building the confidence that the #urbanSDG is operationalisable. See the spider diagrams at the end of our presentation to the OWG for glimpse of where this may go.
There may be interesting operational lessons for other SDSN TGs on localisation, data and policy relevance and our transition towards national and locally relevant interventions.
We’re look forward to your continuing support, engagement and are very happy to share our experiences with you to build SDSN & take the SDG processes forward to implementation. We are counting on your support to make this possible along with hundreds of cities & institutions across the world.