2024 VLR-VSR Days

Co-organized by UCLG, UN-Habitat and UNDESA.

Welcome to the VLR-VSR Days webpage!

Join us! The third edition of the VLR-VSR Days, to be held on 15 and 16 July 2024 in the framework of the High-Level Political Forum, is coorganized by UCLG, UN-Habitat and UNDESA. Its main aim is to harness the potential of the VLR and VSR processes to bolster SDG localization across the globe. Bringing together LRGs, their associations, national governments, international organizations and other partners, the Days will address the challenge to ensure that the vision and commitments written in the reports are transformed into tangible, innovative and inclusive actions to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs.

Background:

With only six years ahead of the deadline for achieving the 2030 Agenda’s commitments, we are leaving more than half the world behind. Global geopolitical tensions are rising, conflicts are raging, and inequalities are rife. Many economies are suffocating under debt amidst a cost-of-living crisis. Overall, sustainable development is suffering. Without immediate action, the 2030 Agenda risks becoming an epitaph for a world that could have been.

To turn this around, resilient and inclusive governance at all levels—local, regional, national, and global—is vital. The critical role of local and regional governments (LRGs) and their associations in advancing the SDGs and forging cross-level and cross-sector partnerships is widely recognized. It is against this background that they have revolutionized SDG reporting through Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs) and Voluntary Subnational Reviews (VSRs), which have emerged as crucial processes for accelerating implementation and fostering ownership of the SDGs.

VLRs and VSRs help local and regional governments integrate the SDGs into their policymaking, track progress, and showcase success stories in sustainable development across all planning areas, including strategy, budgeting, procurement, data, monitoring, evaluation, coordination, and stakeholder engagement. These processes are transformative: they accelerate SDG achievement and support advocacy for a more enabling environment before national governments, UN entities and other stakeholders. In June 2023, during the United Nations Habitat Assembly, Member States endorsed the first-ever resolution on SDG localization. This resolution specifically recognizes the essential role of VLRs and VSRs in demonstrating progress and fostering exchange on local SDG implementation. Additionally, as localization was identified as a key enabler for SDG transformation during the 2023 SDG Summit, with the Local 2030 Coalition selected to accelerate implementation, VLRs and VSRs are essential to operationalize the commitments made.

Indeed, VLRs and VSRs are becoming the processes of choice for cities, provinces, regions, and local government associations, underscoring the centrality of LRGs in delivering on their own as well as supporting national priorities and advancing sustainable development. Since 2016, more than 300 VLRs and 44 VSRs have been produced across various world regions, gathering information from over 170,000 LRGs and representing more than 1.75 billion people.

The VLR-VSR Days: objective and debates

This third edition of the VLR-VSR Days aims to harness the potential of the VLR and VSR processes to bolster SDG localization across the globe. It will discuss what it means to promote action-oriented VLRs and VSRs, as well as how to leverage and replicate the already appreciable impact of those VLRs and VSRs produced over a year ago as bold, full-fledged processes going well beyond monitoring and reporting.

Agenda

📅 Session 1 (15 July, 14h30-16h00 CEST): Opening + Strengthening multilevel governance for SDG localization

📅 Session 2 (15 July, 16h30-18h00 CEST): Rebuilding trust in governments through VLRs and VSRs

📅 Session 3 (16 July, 14h30-16h00 CEST): Urban basic services providers and VLRs/VSRs

📅 Session 4 (16 July, 16h30-18h15 CEST): Effective SDG localization: Linking evidence-based policy and financing + Closing

Looking forward to seeing you all in these exciting exchanges!

Still got questions? Contact policy@uclg.org from the UCLG World Secretariat and marta.rodomasriera@un.org from UN-Habitat for more information.

Twitter links:

▶️ twitter.com/uclg_org

▶️ twitter.com/unhabitat

▶️ twitter.com/UNDESA

Web links:

▶️ https://powerofwe.uclg.org/

▶️ https://unhabitat.org/

▶️ https://www.un.org/en/desa