The recently adopted global agendas, notably the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement of COP21, Habitat III, Financing for Development and the Sendai Framework, provide a vision for common values through a global governance system. This chapter raises questions about when and how localising these agendas makes sense to ensure that policy meets people’s expectations and needs by giving them a greater voice in the process and implementation. The chapter considers three questions: i) Are regions and cities indeed the places where policies and people meet? ii) Do regions and cities have the right tools and capacities to localise SDGs and other targets? and iii) How can national and subnational governments work better together, using a more structured engagement with people in the process?

This chapter discusses why urbanisation is a necessary tool for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It proposes a strategic and pragmatic framework for how governments at all levels, across all regions, can activate a positive pattern of urbanisation to improve the lives and livelihoods of all human settlements. UN-Habitat is advocating for a transformative model of urbanisation in the New Urban Agenda (NUA), set for adoption at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador in October 2016. This chapter first offers an overview of trends and challenges for sustainable urbanisation, which provide the basis for understanding why a New Urban Agenda is needed. The second section explains how quality urbanisation and the role of cities are critical to achieving the aims of all post-2015 global agendas. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the strategic actions needed to implement the New Urban Agenda.

Unlocking the potential of territories at the local level is key to financing the amount of investment urgently needed to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to meet the needs of the population. The series of international debates on development are paying increasing attention to city-level development financing, but local authorities are still not recognised as central to the debate. Focus should be brought first on improving the mobilisation of local endogenous resources, through expanding local taxation and relying on land-based finance and taxation of economic activities to improve local fiscal autonomy. Then, guarantee mechanisms should facilitate the process of leveraging external resources, encompassing private finance, climate finance, and borrowing, to finance long-term infrastructures.

This chapter argues that cities and regions have a crucial role to play in facing existing and future challenges of managing water – whether too much, too little or too polluted. While no blue-print exists on how water challenges are to be met, inaction is certainly not an option. On the contrary, there is momentum to move from vision to action towards the implementation of the global agenda to 2030, which aims, amongst other things, to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation to all. The chapter argues that there is room for better efficiency and inclusiveness when connecting between territorial scales and water boundaries, and across water-related policies. The OECD Principles on Water Governance provide a framework to set and implement water policies across levels of government that contribute to better lives.

United States rural policy seeks to mobilise the assets of rural areas for national prosperity and offer opportunities for greater quality of life across all rural communities. This chapter considers the diversity of rural places and how rural policy and other place-based approaches and bodies, such as the White House Rural Council, can contribute to their vitality. It further describes how several programmes and plans are being implemented to fulfil these goals, including: Promise Zones; StrikeForce Initiative; Partnership for Sustainable Communities; Local Food, Local Places; Community Economic Development approaches; Strategic Economic and Community Development; Investing Manufacturing Communities Partnerships, and rural elements of the Climate Action Plan.

Despite impressive progress in reducing hunger and poverty, about 800 million people worldwide continue to suffer from undernourishment. Food insecurity and malnutrition are problems affecting rural areas in particular, as part of a pattern of deep-rooted spatial inequalities. Conventional sectoral agriculture and food policies often overlook such territorial disparities and, consequently, are unlikely to suffice to meet the sustainable development goal of ending hunger and achieving food security for all by 2030. This chapter argues that food security and nutrition policies would greatly benefit from a territorial approach. A territorial approach to food security and nutrition goes beyond a simple rural-urban dichotomy. The development of strong and mutually reinforcing rural-urban linkages is important for the development of agriculture and food systems at large, but will not be effective if it does not consider competing uses for land, water and other natural resources and plans infrastructure and basic services within and between different territorial contexts.

The Paris Accord and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for a massive scaling up of green projects. However, such infrastructure investments are not achievable without private financing. Over the last few years, R20 Regions of Climate Action has been working to address this gap by collaborating with the regional and local decision makers, technology companies and investors to develop bankable projects in different areas of the green economy from energy generation to waste management. This chapter highlights several programmes and financial instruments, including novel pre-investment facilities (PIF), being used to implement projects worldwide in support of these new global targets.