Achieving Localization of SDG11: A critical review of South Asian region and learnings for India

Abstract

Home to one-fifth of the world’s population, South Asian countries act as loci for interlinked sustainability issues owing to rapid urbanization. Given the context of formidable problems that threaten to overwhelm the region’s cities and towns, the localization of SDG 11 has become desirable for sustainability. This paper reviews the literature encapsulating the progress of developing economies such as China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia towards SDG 11 and intends to extract substantiated strategies adopted for comprehensive localization of the goal through certain examples. The results conglomerate key enablers such as inclusive institutional and financial environment, stakeholder engagement for the reorganization of people-centered resource flows, efficient data ecosystems to promote social innovation, and adaptive policy reform measures for generating cross-cutting innovative solutions. These enablers serve as the initial step for informing the essential parameters required to prepare the contextual framework of SDG 11 for Indian cities and induce a paradigm shift with informed policy decision-making at the city level.