Etikett: Localising SDGs

Empowering Local Voices: The Role of Participatory Research in SDG Voluntary Local Reviews

This report analyses the use of community-based, participatory methods in producing Voluntary Local Reviews. Since 2022, the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy has supported municipalities with policy integration of the Sustainable Development Goals. Research teams together with three of these municipalities (Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Emboreet and Kibaha in Tanzania) applied community-based participatory research (CBPR) to collect data, information, and collective experience from the communities within the towns. The outcome VLRs work as a laboratory for an alternative kind of review on SDG implementation, with a focus on stories, perception, and co-ownership rather than on data, measurements, and indicators. This report explores the process that led to the VLRs, the contents of the reviews, and the lessons that can be learned for other local governments to adopt and contribute to a more inclusive and participative approach from the bottom up. It showed that more participation increases the community’s perception of their ownership of decision-making, and that bottom-up VLRs can constitute a mechanism for citizens to affect, change and improve the policymaking process.

Typ av publikation

Research Reports

Projektområde

Inclusive leadership and governanceLocal economic development, innovation and livelihoods

Globala mål

17 - Genomförande och globalt partnerskap

Tema

Participatory democracy, citizen dialogues and budgeting

Etiketter

Action research, CBPR, Localising SDGs, Participatory Research, SDGs, VLR, Voluntary Local Review,

Voluntary Local Review – City of Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina

This report looks into the localisation of SDGs in the City of Bijeljina, which is an SDG pioneer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It reviews three SDGs – SDG5 (gender equality), SDG10 (inclusion), and SDG17 (partnerships towards goals) – through the lens of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) which is based on an immersion of researchers into the communities to seek active involvement of participants. The City of Bijeljina being a very heterogeneous community, this research has sought to address asymmetries in each of the three prioritised SDGs by looking into the institutional mechanisms for localisation of SDGs, specifically mechanisms and approaches for engagement of civil society, citizens and local communities in that process. It identifies some level of citizen engagement in setting priorities, marking the planning stage of the localization of SDG as participatory. However, the implementation and monitoring of results still lacks strong community ownership, as integration of SDGs into local processes still rests with the formal structures of the City administration. As such, the report concludes that the City of Bijeljina has been very successful in the initial stages of localisation of SDGs through systematic engagement of civil society in different aspects of designing and implementing the local Development Strategy, but recommends the City to enable and promote participatory monitoring that would more closely reflect citizens’ views on the process of localising SDGs.

Note: This is one of three Voluntary Local Reviews, developed using participatory methods, supported by ICLD in 2023. Lessons learned from this experimental approach to VLRs – how it builds democratic capacity and how it can get even better – are gathered in a forthcoming research report. Stay tuned!