Introduction

What kind of follow-up and review is needed to facilitate the successful implementation of international agreements and agendas? Halle and Wolfe (Citation2016) suggest that changes in behavior are more likely to occur if follow-up and review processes allow for reflection about what works and what doesn’t and provide support in implementing lessons learned, rather than stigmatizing states for failing to fulfill commitments.

As outlined by Garschagen and Porter (this issue), the New Urban Agenda has been subject to both praise and criticism for the issues that it does – and does not – place in the spotlight. The relevance of the New Urban Agenda in the coming years will also be affected by the extent to which the follow-up and review process manages to create and reinforce partnerships among all relevant stakeholders and foster exchanges of urban solutions and mutual learning (Res. 71/256, para. 162).

It is crucial that stakeholders engage in the follow-up and review of the New Urban Agenda with more ambition than they did during the Agenda’s predecessors – the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements (Habitat I, 1976) and the Habitat Agenda agreed at Habitat II in Istanbul in 1996. Already the Istanbul + 5 conference that took place five years after the Habitat Agenda was signed, indicated a lack of political will to implement the commitments made at Istanbul (Resolution S-25/2: para. 18), Cohen (Citation2016) therefore suggests that this lack of commitment and the few success stories were likely a cause for the little interest in reflecting on the extent to which Habitat II commitments had been implemented in preparation for Habitat III.

While the follow-up and review of the New Urban Agenda has a range of objectives, in this article we focus on the extent to which the follow-up and review structures proposed in the Agenda support mutual learning, and what we can learn from experiences in other contexts. Mutual learning is critical insofar as the value of many of the other components of the follow-up and review process – such as reporting – is contingent on the way they are used. Thus, a report filled with important insights is of limited value if it is not embedded in processes which help those actors who most need to reflect on and learn from its messages.

Moreover, the idea of mutual learning is interesting as it implies that this is a two-way process, where everyone has something to learn, including both developed and developing countries, national, subnational and local governments, donors and beneficiaries, UN institutions, civil society and the private sector. It also suggests that discussions take place at eye level.

Strengthening learning on urban issues would be one of the ways in which the follow-up and review process of the New Urban Agenda can have a clear added value vis-à-vis the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While the latter also covers urban issues (chiefly, but not exclusively, through SDG 11), the space for learning and an open exchange is currently limited - despite platforms such as the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

Design of Review and Targets of Mutual Learning

In the run-up to Habitat III, numerous ideas for follow-up and review processes were discussed. Debates centered on issues such as the need for explicit targets and indicators comparable to the 2030 Agenda to monitor the New Urban Agenda. While some argued that clear indicators and targets would be essential to track progress on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, others feared an unreasonable burden for governments. As the Habitat III process did not result in such explicit targets and indicators, there is much leeway for governments to decide how to track progress.

At one point, the draft of the Agenda also contained a call for the establishment of a multi-stakeholder panel to strengthen the links between urban science and policy, and support for the assessment of progress and implementation of the New Urban Agenda (Dellas, Acuto and Parnell Citation2016). However, this proposal did not make it into the final version.

The follow-up and review process that was eventually outlined in the New Urban Agenda is intended to involve a wide range of actors – including contributions from all levels of government, the UN system, regional and subregional organizations, major groups and relevant stakeholders (Res. 71/256: para. 162). Inputs from such actors are to be gathered and included in a quadrennial implementation report, whose preparation will be coordinated by UN-Habitat in collaboration with other UN entities. Moreover, the New Urban Agenda mentions several platforms and events that are to play a role in the follow-up and review process. In the following paragraphs, we briefly reflect on these platforms and events and the extent to which they can support mutual learning.

Firstly, the New Urban Agenda (para. 163) encourages the development of local follow-up and review mechanisms, including through relevant associations and appropriate platforms. What this means in practice will be up to local governments and their partners to decide. However, the reference to “relevant associations” suggests a role for national municipal associations in aggregating local monitoring and reporting efforts and communicating them to higher levels of government, while “appropriate platforms” could, for example, be consultation platforms that facilitate exchanges among relevant actors. Yet a look at the early engagement of local and regional governments with implementation, follow-up and review of the SDGs is enough to understand that the establishment of local follow-up and review processes for the New Urban Agenda will take some years to get going (UCLG Citation2017). However, as will be elaborated on below, existing activities of municipal associations and city networks are already quite promising and provide opportunities to engage cities in a learning process.

Secondly, the New Urban Agenda indicates a role for the World Urban Forum in the follow-up and review process (para. 167). Considering the broad range of actors that attend the WUF on a biennial basis, it does offer opportunities for fostering inclusive discussions and addressing the diversity of the learning needs of different stakeholders.

Thirdly, the quadrennial implementation report will feed into the General Assembly and the HLPF to support coherence, coordination and collaborative linkages in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda (para. 168). However, the extent to which the HLPF can truly encourage learning remains to be seen. For example, observers have commented that the voluntary national reviews – during which member states present their national progress reports on SDG implementation – have a tendency to focus on showcasing what is going well, but do not really encourage the sort of in-depth exchanges on challenges and opportunities that are necessary for learning to occur (Martens Citation2016). Moreover, a recent report by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) (Citation2017, p. 12) highlights that “localization remains a pending issue in the HLPF agenda”, and there is thus far no relevant place for local and regional governments to report “from a local perspective or showcase what is being done”.

Learning from Existing Follow-Up and Review Structures

Follow-up and review will most likely not be limited to the structures mentioned in the New Urban Agenda, and we can expect a range of different, voluntary, decentralized initiatives to emerge and member states to set up their own national structures, as is happening in the context of the 2030 Agenda. For example, at the national level, countries have set up quite different processes and opportunities to involve local and regional governments in follow-up and review processes, such as opportunities for municipal associations to directly contribute sections to national reports, consultation workshops, and online questionnaires (UCLG, Citation2017). Thus, it is also useful to reflect on experiences with follow-up and review in other contexts.

One interesting example is the Partners for Review (P4R) network that was initiated by the German Federal Environment Ministry and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. This network is interesting for a number of reasons, including its decentralized approach – meetings do not take place in the context of the HLPF, but have instead thus far taken place in Bonn, Bogota, and Kampala – which may facilitate participation of a different set of actors than the ‘usual suspects’ that attend meetings in New York. Moreover, the organizers strive to create a confidential and trusting environment to allow for discussion of real challenges, which may not receive sufficient attention in public meetings due to reputational risks.

Another example are the decentralized, horizontal learning initiatives that have been initiated by city networks in collaboration with their partners. For example, UCLG offers workshops to support learning on the localization of the SDGs. Various online platforms developed by UCLG and others – such as localizingthesdgs.org and urbansdgplatform.org – provide repositories and online discussion forums where interested actors can learn about good practices.

At the national level, a recent report finds that of the countries that have thus far developed voluntary reports for the HLPF, local and regional governments have been involved in the preparation of reports in 38 countries (58%), and 27 countries have included local and regional governments “in high-level decision-making or consultation mechanisms created for the coordination and follow-up of the SDGs” (UCLG, Citation2017, p. 11). Such consultation mechanisms can play an important role in fostering mutual learning, for example, by allowing the national government to learn about the challenges faced by local governments, and helping local governments learn about the successful cases of other cities in the same country.

Concluding Remarks

Follow-up and review structures do not develop overnight – it often takes years for them to be established after international agreements and agendas have been signed. They are also rarely set in stone from the outset, but may change over time based on experiences from the first review cycles. In this sense, follow-up and review processes are themselves subject to learning.

Thus, it is not surprising that there are still many open questions with respect to the follow-up and review process of the New Urban Agenda more than a year after Habitat III. It is also possible that the ongoing discussions on strengthening UN-Habitat will influence how it exercises its role in the follow-up and review process.

However, the examples of initiatives and platforms outlined above indicate that state and non-state actors do not have to wait for signals from the international level in order to start defining follow-up and review structures that are conducive to learning. Moreover, the variety of initiatives that exist – including, but not limited to, national platforms, transnational stakeholder networks, online platforms and peer-to-peer learning between cities – suggests that there is no single right answer, but that multiple approaches are needed to address the different learning requirements of different stakeholders. In developing such initiatives, it is important to focus on synergies with the 2030 Agenda to reduce the burden created.

The development of such platforms, initiatives and approaches is crucial to ensure that the follow-up and review of the New Urban Agenda is not just limited to the preparation of another report that is acknowledged every four years, and then forgotten until the next one is published.

Notes on Contributors

Eleni Dellas is a project manager at adelphi, specialising in the areas of urban governance, the global development agenda and various activities in the field of climate diplomacy. Eleni advises national and international clients on multilateral development cooperation and current developments in international negotiation processes, with a strong focus on the implementation, follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the New Urban Agenda and the Paris Agreement. She is currently consulting with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) on the ways in which multi-level climate governance can support local climate action. Email: dellas@adelphi.de

Franziska Schreiber coordinates the urban transformation work of adelphi, a think tank based in Germany. The focus of her work includes international negotiation processes relevant to cities, urban governance and integrated planning. She is the author of various studies, articles, as well as discussion and policy papers. Franziska has advised a number of international and national clients on the Habitat III process and urban development issues, including the Cities Alliance, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). On behalf of the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), she currently examines the impact of global agreements such as the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the New Urban Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement on the National Urban Development Policy in Germandy and on municipal planning. Email: schreiber@adelphi.de