This report highlights the local implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It particularly illustrates how the 11th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-11) can be integrated with the New Urban Agenda (NUA). It further shows how these two global agendas are relevant in a Swedish context. Our ambition with this report is to support and enhance local sustainability work in Sweden and provide a foundation for Swedish local actors’ to share good practices and lessons learned globally.

As more than 70 percent of the world’s energy consumption and GDP are generated in the worlds fast-growing cities, urban development has become crucial for global sustainable development. It is primarily in cities that poverty can be fought and climate change mitigated. The SDG-II “Cities and settlements should be inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” will therefore be key for implementation and accomplishment of the global sustainability agendas. The global agendas are therefore local. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. In the next generation, the urban population is expected to increase to over 70 percent. This means that we will have to build the equivalent number of new urban settlements as has been built throughout the history of humanity. Already today, one billion people live in informal settlements and slums; that is one-seventh of the world’s population.