Localizing the SDGs in Flanders: SDG pilot-project
Description
Local governments play an essential role in implementing the 2030 Agenda: the achievement of 65% of the SDG-subtargets requires the active involvement of local governments. But how to target local policy planning towards the 2030 Agenda? Because local governments face different challenges, have different budgets and competences, we need to ‘localize’ the SDGs. To figure out how this can be done, the Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (VVSG) has set up a pilot project (2017-2019). With a group of 20 municipalities, an intensive trajectory of exploring and testing methods and tools for localizing the SDGs was rolled out.
The ultimate goal is a coherent policy for sustainable development based on the SDGs in as many municipalities as possible. This means that (1) sustainable development is embedded in a structural and integrated way in local policy and (2) that local policy contributes to the SDGs and is in line with the values of the 2030 Agenda.<br />
The pilot-project works on three tracks: awareness raising, politics and policy. As the interaction between these tracks becomes more intense, locally driven, bottom-up progress towards the SDGs accelerates.<br />
Eyes were set on the municipal elections of October 2018, which we consider as a window of opportunity for incorporating the SDGs in a series of policy political documents: local party manifestos, policy papers, context analyses and ultimately the multi-annual strategic plans. During our meetings with the 20 pilot municipalities we explore, develop, test and implement tools, exchange experiences and formulate recommendations on how to use the SDGs as a framework in these policy documents. In addition, awareness raising materials, activities, practices and strategies have been developed. The developed materials are then disseminated to all Flemish local governments through our SDG-website, through conferences and by giving presentations for and do workshops with local governments all over Flanders and abroad. Most of our tools are translated into English for further dissemination internationally. In the run up to the elections we targeted several actions at local political parties and candidates, encouraging them to take up the SDGs. After the elections, we targeted actions at newly elected councillors and aldermen, for example by photographing them with the SDG they wanted to contribute to and placing these photos on social media.<br />
Challenges and difficulties:<br />
- Our tools and recommendations needed to be ready for use before municipalities started drawing up each policy document. That also meant that there was little empirical practice to build our recommendations on. We solved this by working with ‘living documents’, which were gradually updated and enriched with examples of both pilot and other municipalities.<br />
- There is a risk that business as usual is labelled as sustainable and is presented as a contribution to the SDGs. Our set of local SDG-indicators, adjusted to the context of local authorities in Flanders, enables them to establish a baseline and monitor progress.<br />
- Cooperation and coordination across government levels is a challenge in institutionally complex Belgium and Flanders. VVSG attempts to streamline efforts of local authorities with those of higher levels of government by initiating dialogue, discussing common goals and responsibilities of each government and aligning strategies. The above-mentioned set of local SDG-indicators has been linked with the Flemish SDG-targets. VVSG and the Flemish government are currently discussing the creation of a sustainability/SDG pact and wishes to involve the federal government as well. This sustainability pact will hopefully be elaborated after the elections in May 2019.
Implementers: Team International of VVSG
Donors: Flemish and Federal Government
Partners: various departments of both the Flemish and Federal government, provincial authorities, CEMR, Platforma, UCLG, various CSOs
Advisory board of VVSG colleagues and external experts of following organizations: 11.11.11 (CSO), Rikolto (CSO), Protos (CSO), VOKA (CSO), CIFAL, Instituut voor de Overheid (academics), KINA (knowledge centre 29 Public Centres for Social Welfare Antwerp), VNG (Association of Dutch Municipalities), City of Sint-Niklaas, Province of Antwerp
In early 2017, we drew up a ‘declaration of commitment’, in which the undersigned municipalities commit to the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. We then launched a call of interest to find municipalities that wanted to participate in our SDG-pilot project. Municipalities that wanted to apply had to sign the Declaration of Committment and write a motivation letter. We received 50 applications, but due to limited capacity, the advisory board selected a core group of 20 municipalities. Because we wanted a diverse group, the selection was done on the basis of size, geographical dispersion and the extent to which they were already working on sustainable development. So we have both big and small, urban and rural municipalities in the pilot group which also differ in terms of experience with sustainability policy.
How do we work?
meetings with the 20 pilot municipalities 3 times/year. Every municipality is represented by 2 civil servants: one sustainability or international cooperation officer and one strategic policy officer. During these meetings we:
o exchange experiences, learn from each other, discuss pitfalls, obstacles and opportunities
o try out methods and do workshops with regard to:
• using the SDGs as a framework in a series of strategic policy documents
• developing local SDG-indicators
• embedding the SDGs within the organizational structure and culture
• using the SDGs as a framework for international cooperation by municipalities
• raising awareness within the community
• involving local stakeholders in the SDG-related efforts of the municipality
• …
o discuss what is happening at higher levels of government
o develop communication and sensitization strategies, campaigns
visits to each of the 20 pilot municipalities twice a year to:
o better cater to their specific needs, discuss their specific questions
o possibly give a presentation or workshop for the management team and/or the board of aldermen.
political meeting once a year with local politicians from the pilot municipalities in order to discuss:
o how they can use the SDGs in their political work, in their campaign, in their party platforms
o what their take is on the process of localizing the SDGs
o how we can get the SDGs higher onto the political agenda
2 thematic SDG-sessions with (1) leisure and (2) social affairs experts from the pilot municipalities
Meeting (twice a year) with the advisory board, which supervises and monitors the project.
An external consultant conducted a midterm review (evaluation) between November 2018 and January 2019 of the broader programme of which this project is a part.
a. Awareness raising
- animation movie (available in English, French and Spanish)
- publication SDGs in your municipality: 50 practical awareness raising examples
- gameboard 17 SDGs: core theme and 3 levels (circle exercise)
- gameboard 5 pillars of sustainable development: core theme and 3 levels (circle exercise)
- development and distribution of SDG awareness raising materials: pins, poufs, tote bags, banners, etc.
b. Policy making
- publication Local Support for Global Challenges: selection of SDG subtargets that are relevant for local authorities in Flanders, with examples from local practice.
- basic tool (Excel) which helps to gain insight into the SDG status of your municipality and to determine what you want to focus on (available in English, French and Spanish)
- inspiration paper with scenarios for integrating the SDGs into the context analysis (available in English)
- inspiration paper with scenarios and methods for integrating the SDGs in multi-annual strategic plans (not translated yet)
- set of 205 local SDG-indicators + manual (available in English)
- integration of SDG-codes into the software packages that municipalities use for monitoring
c. Political strategy
- SDG Declaration of Committment ‘Global Goals Local Focus’ signed by 76 Flemish municipalities (available in English, French and Spanish)
- Recommendations to integrate the SDGs into local party manifestos
- letters to political parties, asking them to use the SDGs as a framework in their election manifestos
- letters to local politicians, asking them to act as ‘SDG-ambassadors’ and talk about the SDGs in their campaign, with their constituents, at party meetings, in speeches, etc.
- 20 movies on social media with photos of newly elected councillors and aldermen, holding the SDG(s) they want to contribute to
Outcomes/effects/impact
- SDG-dynamic in 20 pilot municipalities: the SDGs popping up in local election manifestos and policy agreements, SDG-working groups within the administration, the SDGs as the framework for strategic policy planning, participatory trajectories based on the SDGs, awareness raising activities, local politicians act as SDG-ambassadors, wearing the SDG pin and talking about how they contribute to the SDGs in their community.
- SDG-dynamic in Flanders and beyond: the tools that have been developed in the context of the pilot project are being used by more and more local authorities in Flanders but also internationally. Since 2017, our team has given more than 70 presentations, both in Flanders and abroad.
- Local authorities working with the SDGs tend to:
o embrace long term planning
o transcend silo-thinking
o adopt an integrated, holistic approach
o step up their sustainability efforts: initiating new projects, making existing projects more sustainable by taking into account the different aspects of sustainable development
o implement more horizontal, project-based management systems, thereby enhancing cooperation amongst departments
o change their organizational structure in function of a more strategic role or position of the sustainability or international department
- At the level of VVSG:
o strong and extensive network of VVSG
o local authorities value the work of VVSG
o The SDGs are a strong brand and lends itself well for communication purposes
o Willingness to dedicate time and resources of:
20 pilot municipalities
Members of the advisory board
VVSG-colleagues of other teams than Team International
- At the level of municipalities:
o ‘SDG-ambassadors’: enthusiastic civil servants or politicians
o SDG-steering group
o Strong mandate of mayor and aldermen
o Involvement of strategic/policy department
o Involvement of communications department
o Build on existing initiatives, place them within SDG-framework, apply an integrated/holistic approach to make existing initiatives more sustainable, raise the ambition
Constraining factors:
- Limited capacity (personnel and budgets) of Team International and of local authorities
- Resistance to change within local authorities
- Changing of local governments after elections (can also be an enabling factor)
- Limited ambition and leadership by Flemish and Federal Government with regards to the SDGs
- Complex institutional framework of Belgium and Flanders
- Limited coordination on SDG implementation across government levels
Replicability: We believe the results of the pilot project will be widely used as a source of inspiration by local governments both in Belgium and internationally to streamline their policy plans along the lines of the 2030 Agenda, to target their efforts towards the SDGs and to raise awareness about the SDGs both internally within the municipal organization and externally towards the broader public in their community. The outputs of the awareness raising track, but also the methods and tools of the policy and politics track, can be used not only by local governments, but also by other types of organizations (schools, CSOs, private sector, …). Since we have translated most of our outputs into English, they can also be used abroad.
Local authorities are the level of government closest to the citizens so they are in the perfect position to translate the broad and often abstract 2030 Agenda and the SDGs into concrete actions that respond to local needs. The global challenges that the SDGs aim to address require local actions. Our SDG pilot project has empowered local authorities to align local actions to global challenges by providing them with the necessary tools. An external evaluation (carried out November 2018 – January 2019) of the broader programme of which the pilot project was part, estimated that 35 Flemish municipalities are working with the SDGs in their policy planning. However, we expect this number to increase, because we keep receiving questions of other municipalities for advice on how to integrate the SDGs in their policy planning. Another finding of this evaluation was that without The SDG-pilot project, local authorities in Flanders would not be working on the SDGs. In other words: the pilot project was the conditio sine qua non for local action for the SDGs.<br />
<br />
The simultaneous focus of the pilot project on three tracks – awareness raising, politics and policy – caused a snowball effect whereby support for the SDGs is growing both internally within the administration and amongst local politicians of the 20 pilot municipalities and externally within their communities (citizens, companies, schools and CSOs). Other municipalities see what is going on in our pilot municipalities, see that working on the SDGs actually makes a difference for local policy making, and start to think about working on the SDGs as well. For more on impact: see section ‘results/outputs/impact’.
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Deliverables & Timeline
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Contact Information
Jules De Winter, International Officer VVSG