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| Image credit: @Bristol Design, Bristol City Council |
The UN Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) are often referred to as “the closest thing
the world has to a strategy.” The 17 Global Goals, agreed at the United
Nations General Assembly in 2015, set out 169 targets to be achieved by
the year 2030. These targets cover a wide range of issues, such as poverty,
inequality, gender equality, education, health, infrastructure, energy, climate
change and more. Underpinning the Goals is an ambition to reduce our impact on
the planet and reduce divisive inequalities in society without making anybody
poorer or worse off.
Progress towards meeting the SDGs is normally monitored and
reported at the national level through the production of Voluntary National
Reviews which are presented to the United Nations at an annual event known as
the High-Level
Political Forum.
However, there has been a surge of interest in ‘localising’ the
SDGs in cities around the world by promoting their use, integrating them into
city plans and policies, and monitoring progress at the city (rather than
national) scale by undertaking Voluntary
Local Reviews (VLRs). In July 2018, a handful of cities around the
world reported on their own progress by submitting VLRs to the United Nations.
Inspired by these city-level pioneers, researchers at the Cabot
Institute secured a grant from Bristol University’s UK Economic and Social
Research Council Impact Acceleration Account to produce the UK’s first VLR, Bristol and the SDGs: A Voluntary Local Review 2019
This report was produced through a
partnership between the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University
of Bristol and the Bristol City Office. It reflects a whole-city approach to
tackling the SDGs and includes information on the activities of 90 Bristol
based organisations working to make the city more economically, environmentally
and socially sustainable. The report covers all 17 SDGs and includes data from
over 140 statistical indicators.
In many areas Bristol is performing well. There have been very
significant improvements in the quality of education in the city, particularly
in early years attainment. Bristol’s economy has grown consistently in recent
years while unemployment has fallen. Energy consumption and local carbon emissions
have fallen, and a strong civic commitment to climate action is clear: Bristol
City Council was the first city
in the UK to declare a climate emergency, followed shortly thereafter by the University
of Bristol. While these trends and initiatives are positive, we cannot be
complacent. Bristol’s stated ambition to achieve carbon neutrality will require
sustained efforts at scale by a wide range of stakeholders across sectors and
levels of government.
In other areas Bristol has performed less-well. Child poverty has
been rising in the city and food insecurity is deep in some areas. The gender
pay gap in the city has barely changed despite rising wages for women. Where it
is possible to disaggregate indicators, it is clear that inequalities persist
across neighbourhoods, income groups and ethnicities. Poverty, food insecurity
and youth opportunities are spatially concentrated. Despite falling mortality
rates overall, the life expectancy gap between the most deprived and least
deprived citizens has grown. And the unemployment rate among some ethnic
minorities is nearly double that of white citizens.
Bristol’s
One City Plan, which was developed through extensive engagement with citizens
and stakeholders and is mapped
onto the SDGs, already reflects many of these challenges, which will not
surprise most Bristolians. Fortunately, as our report shows, organisations
across the public and non-profit sectors, as well as the city government, are
tackling these issues in creative ways, from the neighbourhood scale to the
city scale. Many others are seeking to make positive impacts further afield.
In producing this report we encountered a range of difficult
questions, data issues and new insights. The functional area of Bristol is much
larger than the City of Bristol—the subject of this report. This difference
between the de facto urban area and formal administrative boundaries
create challenges in both implementing and monitoring the Goals at sub-national
level. Beyond this, there is a clear need for an indicator framework that is
tailored to the urban scale and suitable across income contexts. We faced a
number of data gaps particularly in monitoring poverty, food insecurity, gender
equality, domestic material consumption, aquatic life and life on land. A
subnational perspective also highlights the importance of disaggregating data
if we are to take the ‘leave no one behind’ ethos of the goals seriously. Many
indicators showed positive trends at the city level but held hidden
inequalities held when disaggregated. If cities are to effectively work towards
the ‘Leave No One Behind’ agenda then more ward level data is needed.
Looking forward, cities have an important role to play in tackling
global challenges, including influencing how the concentrations of capital in
cities are channelled beyond their boundaries. Where and how the capital
generated in cities can have enormous consequences on achieving the SDGs within
cities and elsewhere and it is vitally important that large investment and
pension funds consider how they responsibly use their resources.
But cities cannot do it alone. City governments need support from
private sector and non-profit actors, as well as higher tiers of government and
international organisations. It will not be possible to achieve the SDGs
locally without increased devolution of local powers. The SDGs and the One City
Plan both provide the kind of shared vision needed to forge strategic
cross-sectoral partnerships to achieve a sustainable future. Cities are
increasingly taking the lead in confronting global challenges, but they need
support to follow through.
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| Allan Macleod |