Advancing Peaceful, Just & Inclusive Societies (SDG16) at Local & Regional Levels: A Government approach

SDG16 provides an ambitious set of commitments to build more peaceful, just, and inclusive societies for all.

This paper, together with the two others, assesses the SDGs highlighted in this year’s United High-Level Political Forum (SDG1, SDG2, SDG13, SDG16, and SDG17). Drawing from discussions and research findings, which frequently emphasized national and global progress and hurdles, it digs deeper into local-level impacts, localized challenges, and opportunities. Moreover, it sheds light on innovative and forward-looking policy and practice shifts and interventions led by local and regional governments (LRGs), together with local stakeholders, which have proved to accelerate these transformations from the grassroots level upward.

This paper offers multiple policy recommendations to harness local innovations and transform the current negative trajectories, driving us towards the creation of profoundly sustainable, equitable and inclusive cities and territories.

Coordinated by the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) World Secretariat, this has been produced in partnership with the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and the Peace in Our Cities initiative. All of the papers in the series leverage insights, experiences, and policies gleaned from cities, regions, local government associations, networks within the Global Task Force, and collaborative partners, including inputs from a team of researchers commissioned to craft the GSDR. This wealth of knowledge has been garnered from various avenues, mainly the GTF/UCLG 2024 Survey, written consultations, and interactive online sessions.

Read all of the papers included in this “Towards the Localization of the SDGs” series on UCLG’s website.