Building Back Better: How Localising the 2030 Agenda Could Be a Key Instrument for a Resilient Post-COVID Development

For a long time now COVID-19 is no longer referred to as simply a health crisis. The disease has had too grave an impact on communities world-wide in terms of social, economic and environmental consequences. While uncovering the weaknesses and strengths of their government structures, systems and societies have begun to stress the importance of local governance for the development of a multi-dimensional, resilient and sustainable recovery plan.

This realisation comes at the same time that the 2030 Agenda is celebrating its fifth year anniversary. While already suffering from setbacks regarding its implementation, UN-Secretary-General António Guterres fears that the 2030 Agenda could see even more stagnation due to the pandemic’s impact on society. Against this backdrop she encourages stakeholders to use the 17 SDGs as a blueprint to design collective actions to face the current interconnected challenges while “leaving no one behind.”

Following up on this call to action, Oosterhof stresses that the present crisis requires a holistic response, based on a whole-of-society-approach as well as multi-stakeholder collaboration to be effective. Pointing to the frontline-role of local governments (LGs), she carves out the relevance of LGs for localising the SDGs and encourages their support and inclusion in government responses in order to strengthen their capacities to respond efficiently now as well as in future to crisis like COVID-19 and to build back better.

Learn more by reading her article here.