Developing and testing the urban sustainable development goal’s targets and indicators - a five city study
Journal article, 2016

The campaign for the inclusion of a specifically urban goal within the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was challenging. Numerous divergent interests were involved, while urban areas worldwide are also extremely heterogeneous. It was essential to minimize the number of targets and indicators while still capturing critical urban dimensions relevant to human development. It was also essential to test the targets and indicators. This paper reports the findings of a unique comparative pilot project involving co-production between researchers and local authority officials in five diverse secondary and intermediate cities: Bangalore (Bengaluru), India; Cape Town, South Africa; Gothenburg, Sweden; Greater Manchester, United Kingdom; and Kisumu, Kenya. Each city faced problems in providing all the data required, and each also proposed various changes to maximize the local relevance of particular targets and indicators. This reality check provided invaluable inputs to the process of finalizing the urban SDG prior to the formal announcement of the entire SDG set by the UN Secretary-General in late September 2015.

sustainable development

urban development

SDG

Author

Stina Hansson

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra)

University of Gothenburg

David Simon

University of Gothenburg

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra)

Helen Arfvidsson

University of Gothenburg

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra)

Zarina Patel

Geetika Anand

Amir Bazaz

Gill Fenna

Kevin Foster

Garima Jain

Louise Marix Evans

Nishendra Moodley

Charles Nyambuga

Michael Oloko

Doris Chandi Ombara

Beth Perry

Natasha Primo

Aromar Revi

Brendon van Niekerk

Alex Wharton

Carol Wright

Environment and Urbanization

0956-2478 (ISSN) 17460301 (eISSN)

Vol. 28 1 49-63

Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

DOI

10.1177/0956247815619865

More information

Latest update

4/15/2025