Roadmap for localising the SDGs in Bangladesh

We can develop our roadmap in the system from the suggested UN framework. The framework has five levels that can play a vital role in setting up our development mechanisms

The roadmap for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) is now being considered by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, UNDP and UN Habitat, since the UN framed SDGs needs to be localized for its successful achievements by 2030. In achieving the SDGs, one of the most concerned issues is the participation of all classes of people needs to be ensured in this journey. In making the SDGs related strategy, policy or actions require lots of forthcoming events ensuring the common public participations. The process is kind of a democratic development shared by every single citizen in our planet. 

However, many developed countries have already published their own manifesto for the SDGs journey for targeting within the stipulated timeframe. As their journey for SDGs states their sustainability policies, including an implementation and monitoring plan of the sustainability indicators, but the developing country is still a far away from their strategic vision integrating with the sustainability indicators towards achieving the SDGs. In our development trends, the achievements of the MDGs so far cannot secure us to achieve the SDGs at the same level of success story. The achievement of SDGs seeks a more systematic and dynamic approach since it is a very challenging and huge tasks in context of ambitious goals and targets. The achievements of the MDGs can give us confidence to step forward with our further work, but for achieving SDGs, the MDGs pathway has not supported to a realistic system in following up just with an extended approach in our all development sectors. Therefore, the circumstances hold up an overall system approached roadmap, through which we can deliver the 2030 Agenda rationally.
The roadmap functions with ‘how to’ rather its prescriptive mechanism with a range of strategies in the specific contexts and the requirements of different regions. In this regard, we may focus on some types of continuous process that can be adapted to our every system. Therefore, the roadmap can be functional within a framework of a systematic approach for achieving the SDGs. That means, we have to develop our system in each and every development sector that how to work with the multidisciplinary agenda or an integrated system. However, we can develop our roadmap in the system from the suggested UN framework. The framework has five levels that can play a vital role in setting up our development mechanisms. In the systematic approach the levels are in order as follows:
 1. Awareness-raising: In this approach the local and regional governments should expand their services to increase the understanding and ownership of the citizens’ relevant work corresponding with the SDGs. Government must take the lead, because peoples are willing to accept the governments and administrations. So, the first initiative should come from the local administration and then follow up the process entire the different groups, activists, institutions, private sectors or any other service functional bodies. The partnerships and networks should be formed with the different local stakeholder groups. The awareness-raising campaigns may be carried out with the help of local partnerships.
2. Advocacy: Its objective is getting to know the national level SDGs strategies at the root level citizens. National networks of local, regional or central governments have to be built with the local people in facilitating the participation to form the national strategies. Even in our traditional approaches, this process is overlooked and the decision making process for strategies is solely developed at the national level. In most of the cases, the strategies or policies are enforced at the implementation stage without the concerned reflection and respond to the local needs, circumstances and priorities. Promoting local ownership of the national strategies is crucially important at this stage. If the local and regional governments care about the sense of the SDGs ownership in determining their roles and responsibilities, the engagement of all classes of people will be spontaneous and meaningful in the process. 
3. Implementation: The implementation stage is the local actions of the SDGs in the local communities. Local and regional governments must implement the national strategies at the local level by considering their choices and priorities which should be the best contextualized to the specific goals and best respond to the local people. The local and regional governments can focus on the following key tasks in the communities in parallel to the awareness-raising and advocacy work. The main tasks can be - i) needs assessment to determine the priorities and localize the SDGs, ii) establishing the shared priorities by engaging in cooperative governance, iii) bringing up the local and regional strategies with the SDGs, iv) mobilizing local resources, v) capacity building for effective leadership, vi) encouraging ownership of the development and, vii) involving in development cooperation and learning through peer-to-peer.
4. Monitoring:  We need to evaluate and learn from our experiences collectively. The SDGs has 231 indicators which must be measured and monitored through a system. Localizing these indicators can be easier by gathering data at different territorial level. So, data management is a vital issue in this case. At the territorial data mechanism, strong and visible information should be monitored and stored scientifically. The focused actions may include- i) developing localized indicators in context of each territory, ii) the information which are collected locally, must be used in national monitoring, evaluating and reporting, iii) enabling the participation of all classes of stakeholders in the review of national strategic plans, iv) ensuring the use of SDG indicators to assess and monitor the local or regional plans, v) local achievements must be recognized as the part of a national SDG follow-up reports.
5.    Where do we go from here: This roadmap is just about a framework of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments which must be helpful to our governments and partners in localizing the SDGs. On the basis of SDGs indicators and the framework, we should set-up and follow-up our local and national system. It is essential to tie together among all the administrative levels of the government to localize the agenda. To reach the common vision, all of our development agendas should be functioning effectively by avoiding gaps, confusion, and overlaps in actions on the ground.
Finally, we need an integrated system at the national level that centrally approaches with this roadmap. The proposed roadmap can establish an integrated system which aims to support central, regional and local governments and their all functional bodies to implement and monitor the SDGs. This system can influence the national policy-making body with a view of the common citizens of the top-down approach. However, if we follow this overall process, the system strengthens the local and regional governments through a self directing mechanism which is the most useful resources in the proposed roadmap.

The writer is a researcher on sustainability at BRAC Research and Evaluation Division
[email protected];

 

Roadmap for localising the SDGs in Bangladesh

We can develop our roadmap in the system from the suggested UN framework. The framework has five levels that can play a vital role in setting up our development mechanisms

The roadmap for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) is now being considered by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, UNDP and UN Habitat, since the UN framed SDGs needs to be localized for its successful achievements by 2030. In achieving the SDGs, one of the most concerned issues is the participation of all classes of people needs to be ensured in this journey. In making the SDGs related strategy, policy or actions require lots of forthcoming events ensuring the common public participations. The process is kind of a democratic development shared by every single citizen in our planet. However, many developed countries have already published their own manifesto for the SDGs journey for targeting within the stipulated timeframe. As their journey for SDGs states their sustainability policies, including an implementation and monitoring plan of the sustainability indicators, but the developing country is still a far away from their strategic vision integrating with the sustainability indicators towards achieving the SDGs. In our development trends, the achievements of the MDGs so far cannot secure us to achieve the SDGs at the same level of success story. The achievement of SDGs seeks a more systematic and dynamic approach since it is a very challenging and huge tasks in context of ambitious goals and targets. The achievements of the MDGs can give us confidence to step forward with our further work, but for achieving SDGs, the MDGs pathway has not supported to a realistic system in following up just with an extended approach in our all development sectors. Therefore, the circumstances hold up an overall system approached roadmap, through which we can deliver the 2030 Agenda rationally. The roadmap functions with how to rather its prescriptive mechanism with a range of strategies in the specific contexts and the requirements of different regions. In this regard, we may focus on some types of continuous process that can be adapted to our every system. Therefore, the roadmap can be functional within a framework of a systematic approach for achieving the SDGs. That means, we have to develop our system in each and every development sector that how to work with the multidisciplinary agenda or an integrated system. However, we can develop our roadmap in the system from the suggested UN framework. The framework has five levels that can play a vital role in setting up our development mechanisms. In the systematic approach the levels are in order as follows: 1. Awareness-raising: In this approach the local and regional governments should expand their services to increase the understanding and ownership of the citizens relevant work corresponding with the SDGs. Government must take the lead, because peoples are willing to accept the governments and administrations. So, the first initiative should come from the local administration and then follow up the process entire the different groups, activists, institutions, private sectors or any other service functional bodies. The partnerships and networks should be formed with the different local stakeholder groups. The awareness-raising campaigns may be carried out with the help of local partnerships. 2. Advocacy: Its objective is getting to know the national level SDGs strategies at the root level citizens. National networks of local, regional or central governments have to be built with the local people in facilitating the participation to form the national strategies. Even in our traditional approaches, this process is overlooked and the decision making process for strategies is solely developed at the national level. In most of the cases, the strategies or policies are enforced at the implementation stage without the concerned reflection and respond to the local needs, circumstances and priorities. Promoting local ownership of the national strategies is crucially important at this stage. If the local and regional governments care about the sense of the SDGs ownership in determining their roles and responsibilities, the engagement of all classes of people will be spontaneous and meaningful in the process. 3. Implementation: The implementation stage is the local actions of the SDGs in the local communities. Local and regional governments must implement the national strategies at the local level by considering their choices and priorities which should be the best contextualized to the specific goals and best respond to the local people. The local and regional governments can focus on the following key tasks in the communities in parallel to the awareness-raising and advocacy work. The main tasks can be - i) needs assessment to determine the priorities and localize the SDGs, ii) establishing the shared priorities by engaging in cooperative governance, iii) bringing up the local and regional strategies with the SDGs, iv) mobilizing local resources, v) capacity building for effective leadership, vi) encouraging ownership of the development and, vii) involving in development cooperation and learning through peer-to-peer. 4. Monitoring: We need to evaluate and learn from our experiences collectively. The SDGs has 231 indicators which must be measured and monitored through a system. Localizing these indicators can be easier by gathering data at different territorial level. So, data management is a vital issue in this case. At the territorial data mechanism, strong and visible information should be monitored and stored scientifically. The focused actions may include- i) developing localized indicators in context of each territory, ii) the information which are collected locally, must be used in national monitoring, evaluating and reporting, iii) enabling the participation of all classes of stakeholders in the review of national strategic plans, iv) ensuring the use of SDG indicators to assess and monitor the local or regional plans, v) local achievements must be recognized as the part of a national SDG follow-up reports. 5. Where do we go from here: This roadmap is just about a framework of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments which must be helpful to our governments and partners in localizing the SDGs. On the basis of SDGs indicators and the framework, we should set-up and follow-up our local and national system. It is essential to tie together among all the administrative levels of the government to localize the agenda. To reach the common vision, all of our development agendas should be functioning effectively by avoiding gaps, confusion, and overlaps in actions on the ground. Finally, we need an integrated system at the national level that centrally approaches with this roadmap. The proposed roadmap can establish an integrated system which aims to support central, regional and local governments and their all functional bodies to implement and monitor the SDGs. This system can influence the national policy-making body with a view of the common citizens of the top-down approach. However, if we follow this overall process, the system strengthens the local and regional governments through a self directing mechanism which is the most useful resources in the proposed roadmap. The writer is a researcher on sustainability at BRAC Research and Evaluation Division [email protected];