#Glocal Ambassadors: bringing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to life in cities
Image via Habitat3.org
With the tag #GlocalAmbassadors, the Oxford Urbanists want to leverage the work of changemakers globally implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Find out more about how local action can lead to global results, or if you know an initiative on the same mission, tell us all about it.
The story of the New Urban Agenda and the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have continuously evolved through both global and local approaches. After the mitigated balance of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), UN member countries came together in 2015 and launched new, more ambitious and easily quantifiable global goals. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) urge all government layers, but also the private sector, to collectively take on the challenges of improving standards of living, as well as mitigating climate change and protecting natural heritage. The 17 SDGs thrive on an interdisciplinary mindset where a combination of local and global action is encouraged.
In parallel, UN-Habitat has led the process to produce standards of sustainable urban development. Setting up sustainable cities as a priority at Habitat I in 1976 led to highlighting the need for stronger local governments in 1996, at Habitat II. In 2016, at Habitat III, a growing process of engagement through decentralized urban dialogues, including themes like Metropolitan Areas, Informal settlements and Sustainable Energy and Cities, brought forth the New Urban Agenda (NUA).
The Oxford Urbanists tag #GlocalAmbassadors creates a platform to highlight the effort, creativeness, resourcefulness and social value of urban initiatives that implement the global SDGs and the NUA by creating local transformation in cities and neighborhoods, or ‘glocal’ action. Whether solving the recycling issue in the informally-served rubbish collection system in Lima or creating networks to ensure livable public spaces on European cities, local action is key to attain the goals set by the 2030 Agenda.
Glocal ambassadors, through collective movements, startups, networks, NGOs or public institutions, seize local resources and employ human capital in order to actually implement the SDGs. Sampapé promotes the culture of walking via humanising urban spaces for the people of Sao Paulo, while Hortas Cariocas disseminates knowledge on growing food within the urban realm of Rio de Janeiro. In Bogota, the Combo 2600 animates weekly civic meetings that act as a knowledge-sharing platform to help solve the city’s most crucial challenges. And Delhi’s critical demand for safer urban sanitation has been courageously tackled by #SwachhDelhi4All campaign.
The human scale and down-to-earth goals guide glocal ambassadors’ initiatives, where often low-cost, bespoke urban interventions engage citizens and inspire policymakers.Tactical urbanism and regulatory frameworks intertwine as the urban communities try to become game changers, over potentially conflictual topics. With each initiative, cities come closer to the global commitments of the 2030 Agenda. Follow our regional correspondents at Oxford Urbanists’ Magazine to find out more about Glocal Ambassadors’ initiatives. If you know a Glocal Ambassador in your city or community and want to tell us about it, click here.