Applying the SDGs to Cities: Business as Usual or a New Dawn?

Zinkernagel, Roland; Evans, James; Neij, Lena

doi:10.3390/su10093201

Cited by 120 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…In the end, it is in the responsibility of each city to translate, contextualize, and finally, to implement SDGs. That this involves major challenges in terms of contextualization etc., as has been stated by other scholars [78].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 83%

Urban Sustainability Strategies Guided by the SDGs—A Tale of Four Cities

et al. 2019

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The United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, signed in 2015 and backed-up with its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), mentions cities as key players for evolving actively towards more sustainability. This underpins that living in the cities of the urban age is increasingly becoming the focus of sustainability discussions, which is particularly reflected in SDG 11 “Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. As urban sustainability strategies are playing a key role for the development of cities, this article sheds light on four cities’ sustainability strategies. The case studies highlight shortcomings, in terms of integrated visions, clear targets, and indicators in existing urban (sustainability) strategies. The article discusses these issues in light of an analytical framework, and stresses challenges and opportunities that SDG implementation involves.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 83%

Urban Sustainability Strategies Guided by the SDGs—A Tale of Four Cities

et al. 2019

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“…In doing so, the resilience strategies that have been produced through these assessments represent a potentially useful tool in implementing multiple development agendas that have resilience at their core while building coherence among these different agendas by integrating and institutionalizing resilience in wider city planning and practice. This is important because, while cities are acknowledged as crucial actors in the implementation of global development goals and agendas, most of them have been designed by and for national governments, posing a range of challenges for their planning, monitoring, and implementation at the local level [9,10]. Their implementation therefore requires a process of "localization" or the process of adapting, implementing, and monitoring SDGs at the local level [11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals Through the Lens of Urban Resilience: Lessons and Learnings from 100 Resilient Cities and Cape Town

2020

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Urban resilience is increasingly seen as essential to managing the risks and challenges arising in a globally changing, connected, and urbanized world. Hence, cities are central to achieving a range of global development policy commitments adopted over the past few years, ranging from the Paris Climate Agreement to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, knowledge of the ways in which cities are going about implementing resilience or of how such efforts can practically contribute to the implementation of global agendas is still limited. This paper discusses the experience of cities that were members of the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) network, an entity pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation. It reviews the resilience strategies developed by 100RC members to show that 100RC cities are increasingly aligning their resilience work to global development policies such as the SDGs. It then draws on the case of the city of Cape Town in South Africa to illustrate the process of developing a resilience strategy through 100RC tools and methodologies including the City Resilience Framework (CRF) and City Resilience Index (CRI) and its alignment to the SDGs and reflects on lessons and learnings of Cape Town’s experience for the global city network-policy nexus post-2015.

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“…are set to play a potentially catalytic role in the global achievement of these SDGs [56]. That said, the adaptation of the SDGs to the urban context will require the participation of relevant stakeholders from multiple sectors [57]. The implementation of the SDGs in cities may highlight synergistic relationships among the goals that could provide efficient policy pathways towards the achievement of the SDGs in the urban context [58].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking the Sustainable Development Goals through an Investigation of Urban Household Food Security in Southern Africa

Sgro¹,

Frayne²,

McCordic³

2019

J Sustain Res

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Background: It has been theorised that there are a network of relationships linking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whereby achieving one SDG may have spillover effects for other SDGs. This discussion is relevant to the multidimensional stressors experienced by poor urban households in Sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: We evaluate whether variations in the gender of a household head (SDG 5), education level of a household head (SDG 4) or household wages (SDG 8) are predictive of household food security (SDG 2) among over 6000 poor urban households surveyed in eleven cities in Southern Africa. These comparisons are made using regression analysis and machine learning techniques while controlling for, and comparing against, the contribution of household size, the age of the household head, and the number of household dependents to household food security prediction. Results: Of the variables investigated, our study finds that household wages and the education level of the household head are important predictors of food security among the surveyed households. This investigation also identifies a potentially indirect relationship between the gender of the household head and household food security when other variables are controlled. Conclusions: These findings suggest a predictive relationship between SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) while highlighting a curious indirect relationship between SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 2 among poor urban households in Southern Africa. By understanding these relationships, it may be possible to chart efficient policy pathways towards SDG achievement in Southern African cities.

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Applying the SDGs to Cities: Business as Usual or a New Dawn?

Cited by 120 publications

References 66 publications

Urban Sustainability Strategies Guided by the SDGs—A Tale of Four Cities

Urban Sustainability Strategies Guided by the SDGs—A Tale of Four Cities

Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals Through the Lens of Urban Resilience: Lessons and Learnings from 100 Resilient Cities and Cape Town

Linking the Sustainable Development Goals through an Investigation of Urban Household Food Security in Southern Africa

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