Voluntary Local Reviews: A handbook for UK cities - Building on the Bristol experience
- Local government is working across the UK to see how they can implement SDGs; national government is being encouraged to fund cities to implement SDGs locally.
- Climate change is getting more focus nationally than the SDGs as a whole (SDG 13)
- 16 cities globally have agreed to implement Voluntary Local review of the SDGs; Bristol is the 1st city in the World to take a citywide approach not just specifically relying on local government.
- The International Chamber of Commerce and other organisations attending the recent SDG Summit in NYC have expressed a desire to work in partnership with Bristol to showcase the work being done here; in addition the Commonwealth Local Government Forum and British Council have also expressed a desire to do so. The Alliance was asked to prioritise meeting with the British Council who have volunteered some possible funding.
- A Global Goals Centre is in the process of being established in Bristol, and is aiming to set up a venue in the city centre through fundraising.
- Green Black Ambassadors have been consulted, and have suggested greater citywide community participation.
- A member of the Alliance stated that it was good to have a network in place, coordination, and to be part of something that knows it is doing well; nonetheless it was acknowledged that there are data gaps and the Alliance should aim to have a true authentic voice. It was therefore queried whether the Alliance should focus on the gaps? It was suggested the Alliance is working with the City office towards monitoring as well as implementing SDGs, and how it sees the SDGs sitting within Bristol’s One City Plan.
- A representative of UNESCO- City of Film proposed partnership with the Alliance for a SDG Festival to create partnerships, disseminating information around the SDGs, and results in action. For example to: establish a film team which can assist education on SDGs, in schools and universities; co-produce research to facilitate community action.
- My comments to the meeting included reference to the successful Bristol-Sweden Future Cities Summit which I attended earlier in the week; advocating 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as a human rights based approach to development which should therefore facilitate community participation at the grass roots, e.g. local BAME organisations and communities. I also agreed inclusion of anti-LGBTQI+ discrimination in the VLR and possibly One City Plan was innovative (relying on the Equality Act 2010), because there is no explicit reference to LGBTQI+ minorities in SDG 10.2.
- IN MAY 2020 THE MAYOR OF BRISTOL AND CITY OFFICE STATED SDGs WOULD BE AT THE HEART OF THE URBANISM'S POST-COVID 19 RECOVERY
Comments
Bristol's One City Approach is based on the SDGs, and is the foundation for the urbanism's current economic recovery strategy,
https://www.bristolonecity.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/One-City-Econo...
See also
UN Sustainable Development Goals: A Guide for Councils
UCLG and UN Habitat report: Guidelines for Voluntary Local Reviews – A comparative analysis of existing VLRs
EUROCITIES Implementing SDGs at local level: Paving the way for Sustainable Cities
September 2020
UWE BRISTOL HEALTH AND APPLIED SCIENCES DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER.
BRIEF ON PARTICIPATION IN BRISTOL’S SDG ALLIANCE DURING COVID-19 LOCKDOWN
25 September 2020
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be described as an international framework to address social, economic and environmental challenges faced by people and planet. The 2030 Agenda includes seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), e.g. to reduce poverty (SDG 1), improve food security (SDG 2), and better health outcomes (SDG 3). Each SDG requires a number of targets to be successfully implemented. For example, achievement of SDG 10 to reduce inequality within or between countries, requires implementation of SDG Target 10.3. Stakeholders must “ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.” SDG indicators monitor implementation of SDG Targets, e.g. SDG 10.3.1 monitors “the proportion of the population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed within the previous 12 months on the basis of a ground of discrimination prohibited under international human rights law.”
Members of the African diaspora are disproportionately over-represented in the urbanism’s criminal justice and mental health systems, whereas we achieve disproportionately poorer outcomes in educational attainment, employment and leadership roles than other ethnicities. This illustrates breaches of the International Convention for the Elimination of All for of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 1965. Bristol’s SDG Alliance includes social entrepreneurs such as African Voices Forum (AVF) which represents the urbanism’s African diaspora communities, as well as UWE Bristol, the City Office and other stakeholders. I have represented the AVF’s Board in Bristol’s SDG Alliance since 2019, to advocate race equality through inclusive democratic community involvement in implementing the 2030 Agenda. In that regard, the city’s Voluntary Local Review (VLR) provides guidelines for implementing SDGs and received accolades for its exemplary approach to sustainable development of urbanisms prior to the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.
During lockdown the City Office first advised the SDG Alliance of the Mayor and his administration’s claim to put SDGs at the heart of Bristol’s post-COVID-19 recovery plan through it’s One City Approach, in May 2020. The Alliance advised SDG 10 and SDG 16 are important to demonstrate Bristol is exemplar in equitable broad reaching implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Members of the Alliance were impacted in various ways by the lockdown, with some such as AVF showing dynamism and resilience in adapting strategies to serve local communities. Notably, AVF ALAM Project held an online event on climate change, and the social enterprise also published a fortnightly COVID-19 newsletter at the height of lockdown.
I represented AVF on a Governance sub-committee of the SDG Alliance that participated in online meetings and discussion around the Alliance’s future governance, given social and economic threats posed by COVID-19. It was agreed the SDG Alliance’s future objectives should include driving policy framework, connecting different sectors, increasing awareness and best practice, and multi-level governance. The Governance Sub-committee distributed agreed future Objectives, Terms of Reference, Purpose, and ideas for Funding to the other SDG Alliance members prior to a Bristol SDG Alliance Zoom meeting that I chaired on 10 September 2020. These proposals were discussed in Breakout rooms during the meeting, and subsequently approved in an extra-ordinary SDG Alliance Governance meeting on 24 September 2020, with a few amendments to be agreed. copyright Adé Olaiya, M.A.
"Bristol has the rare privilege of being in receipt of two UNESCO designations; UNESCO Learning City and UNESCO City of Film. This enables a close alignment across our educational and cultural aims, as well as a strong synergy with UNESCO’s ethos and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In recent years, Bristol has led the charge for delivering the SDGs, as the first UK city to complete a Voluntary Local Review in 2019. Fully embedded in our Bristol One City Plan and accompanying policies, the UN SDGs act as a guiding framework for citywide action...."
Mayor Marvin Rees, Bristol UNESCO City of Film UCCN Membership Monitoring Report 2017-21
Read the Report here Bristol_UNESCO_City_of_Film_Membership_Monitoring_Report_2017_21.pdf (mcusercontent.com)