The Role of Local Governments in Localizing and Implementing the SDGs: A Systematic Review of Challenges and Opportunities in the Sub-Saharan Context

Abstract

The sustainable development goals are a call for action to end poverty, protect the planet, and
ensure that by 2030 all the people will enjoy peace and prosperity. Halfway to their implementation,
most African counties are off track in terms of achieving the goals and targets. This entails the need
for a paradigm shift and requires innovative, urgent, and coordinated action for SDG
implementation through localization and multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration. The
implementation of this global agenda also requires the active involvement of multilayer governance
including the local actors. Research conducted so far magnified the central role of local governments
in localizing and implementing the SDGs. However, these researches are limited in scope and also
lack appropriate methodological rigor. In view of this situation, this systematic review attempts to
assess the methodological rigor and scope of previous research and reveals the challenges and
opportunities of local government in implementing SDGs. It also documents the inferences of the
previous research while implying future research areas from the existing limitations. Out of the 75
journals and other publication collected, ten of them met the inclusion criteria and reviewed. The
central theme of the research questions for most of the study papers is the long for an appropriate
SDG localization scheme to ease implementation at the local level. The structure, capacity,
willingness, multi-stakeholder engagement, and characteristics of local government influence the
accomplishment of the SDGs at locality. All those parameters need to be studied in context and
content-specific settings in a participatory approach with a robust and vigorous methodological
scope. Like the nature of the SDG which is interlinked and distinct, research and analysis on the
same require effective coordination of all stakeholders including academic institutions and
beneficiaries of the development interventions.
Keywords: SDG Localization, Role of local government, Decentralization, Development,
Integration and Multi-stakeholder.