Mayor of Istanbul and president of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) Kadir Tobas has taken an active role in the preparation process for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the successor of the Millennium Development Goals. Not only was he a member of a High Level Panel of Eminent Persons which is regularly consulted; he has also taken the initiative to gather local and regional government leaders and their global organizations in a Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for Post-2015 Agenda towards Habitat III. Concrete results of this commitment include the insertion of SDG 11 ("Make Cities and Human Settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable") in the set of 17 SDGs and that the High-Level panel report repeatedly underlines the important and critical role of local and regional governments in a new global partnership.
The Capacity and Institution Working Group (CIB), is member of the Global Taskforce mentioned above. This month, VNG International published a policy brief on the UN's multi-stakeholder consultation process and on the importance of the SDGs for local governments and their capacity building initiatives.
VNG International realizes that there are clear linkages between the objectives of VNG International's Local Government Capacity Programme (LGCP 2012-2016) and the proposed set of SDGs. In the next months, VNG International will be publishing a series of cases from the LGCP to illustrate how increased capacity of local governments can contribute to achieving the projected SDGs. These cases will be shared with the CIB Working Group.
