Global Utmaning in cooperation with the Council of the Baltic Sea States – Baltic 2030, with the support of the Swedish Institute, organized the Baltic 2030 Capacity-Building Programme – Localising SDGs. The initiative was a tailor-made leadership programme designed for regional and local authorities from the Baltic Sea Region, Ukraine and Belarus specializing in strategic planning and sustainable development.
The Baltic 2030 Capacity-Building Programme – Localizing SDGs aimed to strengthen the sustainability leadership of subnational actors, and capacity to integrate the 2030 Agenda as a general framework for strategic planning at local and regional levels. The programme provided the participants with skills and tools needed to support multi-level governance and better policy coherence in localising SDGs, as well as opportunities to exchange experiences in integrated approaches to SDGs implementation, particularly in the field of circular economy (SDG12), sustainable urban development (SDG11) and policy coherence (SDG 17).
Participants of the programme have been engaged in an extensive, inclusive and participatory multi-stakeholder process consisting of two thematic modules specifically designed for experts of strategic planning and sustainable development in the BSR, Belarus and Ukraine. With the aim to strengthen the capacity of key stakeholders to integrate the 2030 Agenda on the local level as a general framework for strategic thinking, planning and budgeting, each module has been designed to facilitate knowledge exchange, capacity-building and peer-learning on the 2030 Agenda as a whole, and on the thematic focus of circular economy. To this end, participants of the programme have together broken new ground and moved forward beyond challenges and accelerated solutions to empower cities and regions to act as change leaders and key players for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. The two modules of the programme were:
11-12 April 2019, Riga, Latvia: 2030 Agenda as a framework for local development. The module aimed to inspire and develop capacity on how the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs can be localized and used as strategic policy- and action-guiding frameworks. SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities, the New Urban Agenda and how all SDGs must be implemented locally will provide the context for the module.
23-24 May 2019, Stockholm, Sweden: SDGs in practice: Integrated approaches for Circular Economy. The module explored how to concretely use the cross-sectorial integrated approaches of the 2030 Agenda by bringing the example of a circular economy. SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production as a key driver to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable future and to reach climate goals. These frameworks were used as a base to produce good examples and case studies, to provide inspiration and to illustrate how circularity can contribute to accelerating the achievement of economic, environmental and social goals.
Contact Person,
Joel Ahlgren, project manager Global Utmaning
