Introduction

Pulling the various strands of the argument and evidence together is particularly important for diverse readerships. In so doing, I highlight the SDG 11 process to date and lessons learnt for different stakeholders and audiences, before ending with a forward-looking discussion of how different and more sustainable it is realistic to expect cities and human settlements worldwide to be by the end of the SDGs’ 15-year lifespan in 2030. This also necessitates some reflections on the synergies between the SDGs and the NUA, which continues until 2036.

The decision to create a successor set of normative development goals to the MDGs that would be globally applicable, emphasize sustainability and be more fully representative of the numerous interrelated dimensions of sustainable development was taken at the Rio+ 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The globally participatory and detailed design process explained in Chapter 1 required considerable time. Indeed, it took until late 2015 to negotiate and agree the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its monitoring and evaluation framework comprising the 17 SDGs, 169 targets and 232 indicators. The NUA, which is the final component of the global sustainable development agenda, was not adopted until late 2016, a year after the life of the SDGs had begun. Conversely, it runs until 2036, six years beyond the SDGs, which raises questions about how the SDGs can act as the M&E framework for the NUA during those final years. These have yet to be answered. Chapter 2 was devoted to a detailed explanation of the anatomy of SDG 11 and the process of debate, negotiation and empirical trials by which the final versions of the respective targets and indicators were arrived at.

Implementation of SDG 11 is proving a great challenge in many countries and urban areas, for several interrelated reasons. First, it had no direct precursors in the MDGs or other global monitoring process. Second, it is very complex and spatially rather than sectorally based. Third, it focuses principally at a subnational rather than national scale. Fourth, implementation requires the direct involvement of many different stakeholders. Fifth and finally, in most countries and cities “the constitutional and legal mandates; institutional capacities; and human and financial resources required to implement these universal goals are at best weak, and – at worst – confused and contradictory” (Rudd et al. 2018: 191).