Measuring Sustainable Urban Development: The Case of India,Europe and Germany

Abstract

Sustainable development has become a global agenda that was institutionalized through the United Nations’ Millennium Declaration in 2000 and was later promoted by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the 2030 Agenda emerged as a comprehensive global framework for fostering universal development, with a vision of ‘leaving no one behind’. Both India and Germany are committed towards the 2030 Agenda. In light of this commitment, this article attempts to understand the initiatives taken by both the countries and by Europe to monitor the progress towards the achievement of the targets at the local/city level. It tries to understand the challenges in an urban data ecosystem for monitoring the progress (or regress) of the SDGs within the geographies. Lastly, the article puts forward recommendations for the timely assessment of sustainability measures and it advocates for the generation of granular data on a regular basis.

Keywords

2030 agenda sustainable urban development urban indices India Europe Germany

Introduction

Since the 1990s, sustainable development has become a global consensus, which has further been institutionalized through the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the 2030 Agenda emerged as a comprehensive global framework for fostering development, with a vision of ‘leaving no one behind’ (Shi et al., 2019). Both India and Germany are committed towards the 2030 Agenda and have aligned their key developmental programmes towards attaining the SDGs.

The 2030 Agenda puts a significant emphasis on measuring sustainable development through the use of high-quality data. To elucidate, SDG 17.18 recommends ‘to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts’, while SDG 17.19 recommends ‘to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product’ (https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal17). As a result, for a better clarity of the SDGs, the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) developed a Global Indicator Framework (GIF). This framework served as a guideline for the United Nations member states to develop data ecosystems for measuring the SDG progress (or regress) at both the national and sub-national levels (United Nations, 2017).

Both India and Germany have developed indicators frameworks to localize the SDGs goals and targets at the national and sub-national levels. However, the globally agreed-upon SDGs are fundamentally relevant to city governments. Most of the SDGs have direct relevance to cities, and around two-thirds of all SDGs’ targets will need to be met in or by cities. In this regard, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated ‘our struggle for global sustainability will be won or lost in cities’.

Against this background, this article examines the initiatives undertaken in India and Germany for measuring the progress (or regress) of sustainable development at the city level. Furthermore, it tries to comprehend the data ecosystem at the city level and associated institutional structures, drawing a comparison between India, Europe and Germany. The article is divided into four sections: The first section discusses multi-level governance structures for measuring and implementing the SDGs at various levels. The second section discusses the data ecosystems in the Indian and European contexts along with the initiatives and indexes formulated in the Indian context to measure sustainable development at the city level. The third section highlights the gaps in the data ecosystems and the institutional challenges. The last section tries to provide suggestions to fill in the gaps and thus contribute to improving the situation in the context of both a developing country or emerging economy and a developed country.

Promoting and Measuring Sustainable Development: From the National to the Local/City Level

India, with the world’s 17% population, holds the key to global SDGs achievement. It is almost universally acknowledged that the country’s success in achieving the SDGs will largely determine the overall success of SDGs at the global level. India’s sincere efforts towards promoting a ‘cooperative’ and ‘competitive’ federalism is a major step in achieving sustainable and inclusive development. In the context of Germany, the well-structured institutional architecture of the German National Sustainable Development Strategy (GSDS) is a catalyst for the implementation of the SDGs and for the fact that the primary responsibility for the GSDS lies with the federal chancellery. The scope of the implementation, however, extends beyond the activities reported in the strategy. Further, government measures not included in the GSDC also serve to implement the 2030 Agenda.

Institutionalizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: National and Sub-National Levels

In India, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), a premier think tank (erstwhile Planning Commission), is playing a leading role in driving Agenda 2030 in the spirit of cooperative and competitive federalism. It is working closely with the central ministries, state governments, the United Nations, think tanks and civil society organizations to foster the adoption, implementation and monitoring of the SDGs both at the national and at sub-national levels. In addition, in line with the GIF, India prepared the National SDG Indicator Framework (NIF) in 2019 under the guidance of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). Since the launch of the United Nations 2030 Agenda in 2015, NITI Aayog has documented two Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and has formulated blueprints for the localization of SDGs. Additionally, it has created the SDG Index and dashboards for continuously monitoring the progress (or regress) towards various SDGs and for promoting healthy competition among states. Due to the federal structure of the Government in India and the corresponding division of powers and responsibilities between the central and the state governments, programme design as well as implementation and monitoring is done by the governments of the states. As a result, the governments of the states play a very important role in successfully implementing the SDGs.

The states have put in place institutional structures, such as nodal SDG departments (usually within the respective planning department), monitoring and review structures and dedicated SDG teams to foster the SDG agenda. A few states have designated officers in each government department who are responsible for coordinating SDG-related activities at the department level. This helps to dissolve silo-based functioning and facilitates coordinated approaches and partnerships. To make the SDG monitoring more robust, 21 states have developed and operationalized their own State Indicator Frameworks and 12 states have taken it to the district level by developing District Indicator Frameworks. Most states have mapped their policies, programmes and projects with the SDG targets, and have assigned the responsibility to the concerned departments.

The situation in Europe is similarly diverse and mirrors in general the ‘federal’ situation of the European Union (EU) as well as its neighbouring countries. The process of implementing the SDGs and measuring their progress (or regress) is driven by both the European Commission and its services, as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and EU member states and their respective local levels, in some cases also regional ones. Local authorities and local societal groups in particular became some kind of ‘hipsters’ in developing self-analyses of their situation in ecological, social, economic and financial terms and in publishing these as Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs). In some cases, VNRs or Voluntary Subnational Reviews (VSRs), covering a more regionally defined geographical context, are also published (BBSR, 2022; Engagement Global, 2022; UN Habitat, 2020, 2021). Considering Europe, the article however does not specifically focus on single EU countries or on groups of them. Measuring the progress (or regress) in Europe towards the attainment of the SDGs is, generally speaking, a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, that are jointly developed indicators, in parallel to orientation of the work, wherever feasible, towards common guiding principles of urban, regional and spatial development (BBSR, 2022). In this respect, national statistical offices and Eurostat play a role equivalent to the one of stakeholder groups and individuals.

Measuring Sustainable Urban Development: Existing Urban Data Ecosystems

The Case of India

With the launch of the Smart Cities Mission in 2015, India embarked on a novel trajectory in harnessing the power of digital technologies to revolutionize urban governance. However, the application of technologies to provide problem-solving solutions needs a robust data ecosystem, which would act as the backbone of the full cycle of decision-making, that is, from problem identification and solution designing to the monitoring of outcomes and necessary course-corrections (DMAF, 2019). Therefore, in India, the shift towards a data-driven governance under the projects, namely, Data Smart Cities and the National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM), is a big step towards a data revolution at the city level. The following section details out the various data-driven initiatives undertaken, which measures the progress (regress) of SDGs at the city level. These initiatives helped to reinforce vertical coherence and to complement and contribute to the national monitoring of urban SDG implementation.

SDG Urban Index

The SDG Urban Index and Dashboard 2021 to 2022 is an SDG progress-monitoring tool at the city/Urban Local Body (ULB) level, developed by NITI Aayog. The index and dashboard is the next step in the SDG localization, following the institutionalization of progress-monitoring systems at the national, state and district levels. VLR reports are also an outcome of this measure.

The index framework covers 56 ULBs, of which 44 ULBs are with a population of over a million and 12 capital cities with a population of less than a million. The framework has 77 indicators covering 15 SDGs, excluding SDG 14 (life below water), as it is only applicable to coastal areas, and SDG 17 (partnership for the goals). The various sectors covered by the indicators include poverty reduction, nutrition, health, education, women empowerment, water and sanitation, clean energy, economic growth, industry, infrastructure, reduced inequalities, urban development, climate action, forests and governance. Data for the indicators were collected from multiple secondary data sources such as National Family Health Survey (NFHS), National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Unified District System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data portals of ministries and other government sources.

The index and dashboard are expected to strengthen the SDG localization and institutionalize a robust SDG monitoring at the city/ULB level. These would help in highlighting the strengths and gaps of ULB-level data, monitoring and reporting systems. The index and dashboard will facilitate the development of a data ecosystem in which all stakeholders will be equipped to adopt and implement data-driven decision-making. Among the 55 ULBs monitored, Shimla (score: 75.5), Coimbatore (73.29), Chandigarh and Thiruvananthapuram (72.36) were the top scorers in 2021.

Ease of Living Index

The Ease of Living Index (EOLI) is an evaluation tool formulated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) to assess the quality of life, examine the impact of various programmes and interventions, and generate information for evidence-based policy-making. The first edition was published in 2018, followed by a revised framework released in 2020. The index provides a comprehensive understanding of the well-being of citizens in 111 cities, identified under the Smart Cities Mission, capital cities and cities with a population of more than a million (IFC & NITI Aayog, 2021). The well-being of the citizen is evaluated across various dimensions such as the quality of Life, economic ability, sustainability and citizen perception survey, covering 49 indicators, subdivided into 14 categories, namely, Education, Health, Housing and Shelter, WASH and Solid Waste Management, Mobility, Safety and Security, Recreation, Economic Development, Economic Opportunities, Environment, Green Spaces and Building, Energy Consumption and City Resilience. The index aligns with the targets of the SDGs set by India. In the 2020 edition of the index, a significant revision was made in the form of incorporating the Municipal Performance Index (MPI) along with the EOLI. While the EOLI assesses ‘the outcomes of the local service delivery and citizens’ perception to it’, the MPI focuses on ‘the performance of the local bodies and their service delivery’ (IFC & NITI Aayog, 2021). Other than this, there has been a segregation of the input and output indicators as well as significant revision of the framework of the EOLI itself. This makes the 2020 scores difficult to compare with the 2018 EOLI scores.

As per EOLI 2020, Bengaluru (66.70) was the top performer, followed by Pune (66.27) and Ahmedabad (64.87) in the million plus city category. Shimla (60.90), Bhubaneshwar (59.85) and Silvassa (58.43) were the top performers among the ‘less than million’ category cities. However, even the top performer cities had considerable scope for improvement. The index brings in healthy competition among cities and facilitates them to chart out course correction and strategize future plans of action.

Municipal Performance Index

The MPI, also developed by MoHUA, provides a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of 111 Indian municipalities in terms of governance, services, finance, technology and planning. The five verticals are further divided into 20 sectors and 100 indicators. The ‘services’ dimension encompasses an evaluation of the various functions that citizens encounter in their everyday lives. The vertical ‘finance’ measures how ULBs manage public funds and access financial resources, whereas the vertical of ‘planning’ evaluates the level of preparation, implementation and enforcement of urban planning. ‘Technology’ highlights the state of digital governance and the ULB’s efforts to promote the same. ‘Governance’ covers the administrative aspects. Since the implementation of the 74th Amendment Act in 1992, municipal bodies or ULBs have had a vital role in managing the governance in the cities. The primary focus of the index is to comprehend the functioning of the ULBs in enhancing the quality of life of the citizens and promoting the development at the grassroot level. In the latest EOLI edition (2020), the MPI was incorporated to assess the efforts of local governments in realising the vision of building ‘Smart Cities’.

There are stark differences in the population size between larger and smaller municipal bodies. Thus, the 111 municipalities were categorized into two groups: Million Plus Municipalities and Less than Million Municipalities. In the first category, Indore (66.82), Surat (60.82) and Bhopal (59.04) emerged as the best performers. In the second category, New Delhi Municipal Corporation (52.92), Tirupati (51.69) and Gandhinagar (51.59) were the top performers.

ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework

The ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework is a first-of-its-kind annual assessment framework that was launched in 2019 to support ULBs in assessing their development perceived through a climate lens and to further inform data-driven decision-making while designing future plans and programmes. The ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework consists of 28 indicators across five categories, namely, (a) Energy and Green Buildings, (b) Urban Planning, Green Cover and Biodiversity, (c) Mobility and Air Quality, (d) Water Management and (e) Waste Management. The framework provides an assessment of both mitigation and adaptation measures. The indicators are progressive in nature to support cities in assessing where they stand and to encourage them to adopt appropriate actions that will enable them to improve their score in the future and consequently build climate resilience.

So far, two cycles of assessments have been carried out (2020 and 2021). The Cities’ Readiness Report based on the framework provides details of overall city level performance with a thematic- and indicator-wise star rating between 1 and 5. While no city qualifies for a 5-star rating, there are nine 4-star cities. These are Surat, Indore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Vijayawada, Rajkot, Visakhapatnam, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Vadodara. The values for 96 data points across 28 indicators have been drawn from secondary data.

Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities

MoHUA launched the Star Rating of Garbage Free Cities under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) in order to institutionalize a mechanism for cities to achieve a garbage free status and motivate them to achieve higher degrees of cleanliness. The star rating protocol builds on the aspirations of cities to progress towards higher standards of ‘swachhata’. The protocol enables cities to gradually evolve into a model 7-star city with improvements in cities’ overall cleanliness. Additionally, with increasing levels of stringency and aspirational nature, the protocol feeds cities with ambitions and dreams of becoming an ideal city for its residents and a role model for other cities to follow. The protocol is based on 24 components and has a graded score for each component provided as per the progress achieved by the cities.

The components have been divided into mandatory (8), essential (10) and desirable (6) indicators and allocated the weightage respectively. A city may score anywhere from level 1 (minimum) to level 4, as per its performance. Thus, a city can be declared as ‘garbage free and achieve a star rating certification if it complies with the conditions as prescribed under this protocol. In 2022, Indore was awarded as India’s first garbage-free city with a 7-star certification while Surat, Bhopal, Mysuru, Navi Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam and Tirupati earned the 5-star garbage free certifications.

Swachh Survekshan

Since 2016, MoHUA has been organizing Swachh Survekshan, which stands as the world’s most extensive survey on urban sanitation and cleanliness. This initiative promoted a healthy competition among Indian cities and towns, motivating them to enhance their service provisions to citizens and strive for the development of cleaner urban areas. Conducted under the flagship of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), it primarily aims at encouraging large-scale citizen participation and creating awareness to enhance the importance of sustainable practices and to become responsible towards making towns and cities better places to live in. A total of 4,354 ULBs were covered throughout the country in Survekshan 2022. Over the years, the Swachh Survekshan Survey has transformed from a monitoring tool to a governance tool.

Indore has been consistently tagged the cleanest city since 2017. Surat and Navi Mumbai were the next best cities in the category. Madhya Pradesh was the cleanest state in the category of more than 100 ULBs, and Tripura emerged as the cleanest state in less than 100 ULBs. Presently, the eighth edition of the survey has already been launched under the title ‘Swachh Survekshan 2023—Mera Shehar, Mera Pehchan’, with the theme of ‘Waste to Wealth’, and is curated towards processing a scientifically based management of waste.

Peyjal Survekshan

This monitoring tool was launched under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation 2.0 (AMRUT 2.0) in September 2022. Complying with the AMRUT 2.0 objective of ensuring water security in cities and facilitating functional tap water connections to every household, the Survekshan will assess the service-level compliance of the city with respect to quality, quantity and coverage of water supply, sewerage and septage management, extent of reuse and recycle of used water (circular economy of water usage), and conservation in 485 AMRUT cities. It will also provide insights on the financial sustainability of ULBs in terms of revenue-generation versus expenditure incurred on water and sewerage services. The key focus areas of this service-level compliance at the city level include water utility services, used water utility services, water bodies, a non-revenue water (NRW) estimation, best practices and innovation. Peyjal has three components to capture the data, namely, Service Level Assessment, that is the information provided by the ULBs on the assessment portal; Citizen Feedback Survey, which includes face-to-face household interviews; and Direct Observation including Lab Test of Water Sample, which comprises onsite verification of infrastructure and a collection of samples for testing in NABL labs. Scores will be assigned to the cities, and city-water report cards, reflecting each city’s water health, will be published. The outcome of the Survekshan will reflect the status of water security in the ULBs and help in achieving SDG 6.

Data Maturity Assessment Framework

The ULBs are custodians of various categories of datasets that hold a part of the solution to many urban challenges. In order to unlock the power of urban data in key urban sectors for enhanced decision-making, improved efficiency, and greater collaboration and innovation with the urban ecosystem, MoHUA, through its Smart Cities Mission, has prepared a Data Maturity Assessment Framework (DMAF). The assessment of cities will foster a culture of data and will help them to assess their readiness in becoming Data Smart Cities. The objective is to help cities emerge as ‘digital leaders’ in a paradigm of data-driven governance.

The framework consists of two pillars—systematic and sectoral. Under each of the pillars, there are a comprehensive set of indicators that would assess the city’s readiness towards data.

The first cycle of DMAF was conducted in 2019, in which 99 cities participated on a systematic pillar across five components of People, Policy, Process, Technology and Outcomes, as well as 26 indicators. Maturity in the components of the systemic pillar will help these cities to build a solid foundation that will serve as the base for cities to create an effective data ecosystem. Once the cities reach a common minimum threshold, they will be assessed on their sectoral readiness of data, that is, the sectoral maturity pillar with Data Availability, Data Usage, Data Shareability and Data Management as its components.

Urban Outcomes Framework

The Urban Outcomes Framework (UOF) 2022 encompasses over 440 data points across 14 sectors for about 250 cities. It is envisaged as India’s first-of-its-kind Urban Data Bank to encourage research and policy-making, and it further acts as a check towards cities’ attempts at being future-ready. UOF is an initiative to develop a transparent and comprehensive database based on cross-city outcomes across 14 sectors, namely, Demography, Economy, Education, Energy, Finance, Environment, Governance and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Health, Housing, Mobility, Planning, Safety and Security, Solid Waste Management, Water and Sanitation.

UOF is a different approach than the indices as the later aims at the evaluation of cities, whereas the former will create an open dataset which, with regular updation, will provide a scope for formulating new frameworks and indices for assessment. The UOF data points for the 250-plus cities are designed in such a manner that the data points pertaining to four frameworks and some additional ones are bundled together as one framework.

City Finance Index

The City Finance Index refers to a national assessment tool that evaluates the financial performance and management of ULBs. The City Finance Rankings 2022 aims at evaluating, recognizing and rewarding Indian ULBs on the basis of their current financial health and the improvement of their financial situation over time. The participating ULBs will be evaluated across three key municipal parameters, namely, Resource Mobilization, Expenditure Performance and Fiscal Governance. The cities will be ranked on their scores in the four population categories: above 4 million, between 1 and 4 million, from 100,000 to 1 million and less than 100,000. The top three cities in each population cluster will be recognized and rewarded.

A robust, transparent and sustainable municipal finance ecosystem is the need of the hour; such an attempt will thus initiate a healthy competition among the participants. All 4,500-plus cities/ULBs are asked to upload data/documents, which exist as audited annual accounts, approved annual budgets and self-reported financial details, through the online facility created on www.cityfinance.in. The rankings will help ULBs to identify the areas for further improvements by providing technical support as well as inform the policy decisions at the central or state level.

The first edition of this ranking is expected to be declared in 2023. It is expected that the results will provide critical insights to policymakers as well as help cities to evaluate their own performance in comparison to others.

City Beauty Competition

Launched by MoHUA, the ‘City Beauty Competition’ aims at encouraging and recognizing the transformational efforts made by the cities and wards in India towards creating beautiful, innovative and inclusive public spaces. It aims at protecting heritage and culture, revitalizing neighbourhoods, imbibing the tenets of ecological conservation, creating sustainable communities and encouraging local economic development. The five broad pillars of evaluation will be accessibility, amenities, activities, aesthetics and ecology. It is expected that it ultimately will improve basic infrastructure within the cities. Selected wards will be felicitated at the city and the state levels under four categories, namely, waterfronts, green spaces, tourist/heritage spaces and market/commercial places. A healthy competition amongst wards and cities would encourage urban local bodies to improve their basic infrastructure and make the urban spaces beautiful, sustainable and inclusive.

The Case of Europe

In Europe, Eurostat started to gather existing and new data to provide SDG-related data for open access, which are updated regularly (Eurostat, 2023a). However, collecting high granularity data on the European level still constitutes a challenging issue. The highest resolution is the NUTS-2 level (i.e. regions), which are very different in size and population across Europe. Even if there are efforts to localize the data in an urban, intermediate and rural context, these classification schemes will still be based on the NUTS-3 level (i.e., smaller regions) and not on the level of municipalities (Eurostat, 2023b; see also https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/background). Furthermore, the amount of regional data is much smaller than the one on the national level.

In addition, Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs) are a crucial component of the Better Regulation Initiatives aimed at enhancing the quality of regulations and policies. RIAs involve a systematic process of evaluating the potential impacts of proposed regulations or policy changes before they are implemented. They mainly ensure that new regulations achieve their intended goals while minimizing any unintended negative consequences and are pivotal for promoting better informed, more effective and transparent decision-making (Adelle & Weiland, 2012). Over the past 30 years, there has been a swift and widespread adoption of RIAs among OECD and EU member states.

Another measurement called Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIAs) is a specialized form of impact assessment that focuses on evaluating the potential economic, social and environmental impacts of policies, regulations, projects or initiatives with regard to their alignment with goals and principles of sustainable development. SIAs are designed to ensure that proposed actions contribute positively to long-term sustainable outcomes and avoid or mitigate negative effects. However, these are challenging as they involve the complex and multidimensional character of sustainability and are affected by the causal relationships between different SDGs (Jacob et al., 2009).

Lastly, the advent of ICTs in the era of digital governance encompasses a variety of electronic tools designed to ‘transmit, process, store, create, display, share or exchange information’ (UNESCO, 2007) and offers fresh avenues to enhance policy formulation processes. These technologies facilitate the evaluation of a broader spectrum of policy options and their potential outcomes (Höchtl et al., 2016).

The Green City Index

Introduced in 2008, the Green City Index initiative was conceived as a joint effort between the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Siemens. The evaluation tool initially gauged the environmental sustainability of 30 European cities, encompassing a population range from under 1 million to over 3 million residents. The Green City Index series measures cities according to approximately 30 indicators across eight to nine categories, based on the region. It covers CO₂ emissions, energy, buildings, land use, transport, water and sanitation, waste management, air quality and environmental governance. The indicator set is designed to use publicly available data (except for CO₂ emissions). The European Green City Index evaluates 16 quantitative and 14 qualitative indicators (adapted on a regional level). Later, this effort was expanded to incorporate the urban centres across Asia, Africa and the Americas and award cities on the basis of the Green City Index.

Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities

In this regard, EU member states, with France taking the lead, jointly developed the Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities (RFSC). It is a self-assessment instrument, aligned with European principles of comprehensive and sustainable urban development and playing a pivotal role as an analytical online tool. The RFSC stands as a user-friendly, digital self-assessment instrument, facilitating cities in the examination, creation, execution and tracking of holistic sustainable urban development strategies and projects. Rooted in the 2007 Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities, this tool advances European tenets for comprehensive and cohesive development across five urban dimensions. Consequently, it evaluates urban policies or projects against 30 distinct objectives (URBACT, 2022).

European Green Capital Award

The European Green Capital Award is awarded to cities in Europe in recognition of their environmental achievements. Launched in 2008, the award was initially granted to Stockholm in 2010 for its accomplishments. For the 2019 European Green Capital Award, 12 indicator categories were listed such climate change: mitigation and adaptation, local transport, green urban areas incorporating sustainable land use, nature and biodiversity, ambient air quality, quality of the acoustic environment, waste production and management, water management, wastewater treatment, eco-innovation and sustainable employment, energy performance and integrated environmental management (European Union, 2016).

Self-assessment Tool for Sustainable Urban Development Strategies

The New Leipzig Charter builds an integrated and participatory approach to strategize sustainable urban development in the EU and is supported by the EU Cohesion Policy 2021 to 2027. The tool known as the Self-Assessment Tool for Sustainable Urban Development Strategies (SAT4SUD) is tailored to local authorities as well as national and regional managing authorities responsible for the EU Cohesion Policy. Its purpose is to aid in the creation or revision of strategies for sustainable urban development. The primary emphasis of the tool is on fostering self-assessment as a vital learning approach. It encourages a critical evaluation of the strategy and facilitates the identification of strengths and areas for enhancement. Furthermore, it serves as a valuable resource for various endeavours, including collaborative discussions between local authorities and stakeholders, peer-reviews, performance comparison, information dissemination and involving external experts. The tool covers a comprehensive set of statements related to design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. These are as follows: strategic dimension, territorial focus, governance, cross-sectoral integration, funding and finance, and monitoring (European Union, 2023).

CITYkeys Indices

CITYkeys (CITYkeys, 2017) represents a relatively new research endeavour to establish a comprehensive city performance framework. This project takes a distinctive European perspective at encompassing both the objectives and the projects of smart cities. The primary goal of CITYkeys is to draft and substantiate an all-encompassing measurement framework that enables the synchronized and clear assessment and juxtaposition of the endeavours of European cities’ throughout the implementation of smart city solutions. The indicators are predominantly performance-oriented. A notable aspect of this framework is its dual focus on both the city level and the project level. Ninety-nine project indicators and 76 city indicators have been selected in this framework.

A. T. Kearney Global Cities Index

The A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index is a compilation of indicators that assess advancement at the city level (A.T. Kearney, 2022). It comprises two principal indices: (a) the Global Cities Index and (b) the Global Cities Outlook. The index, comprising of 27 indicators, centres on present conditions, whereas the outlook, incorporating 13 indicators, examines a forthcoming progress (or regress). The information used is obtained from publicly available sources. The current report (2022) encompasses 156 cities around the world. The standard five dimensions for the Global Cities Index are business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience and political engagement, and the dimension of the Global Cities Outlook are personal well-being, governance, economics and innovation. Within the framework of the indexing system of ‘smart cities’, the first three dimensions of the Global Cities Index and the first two dimensions of the Global Cities Outlook Index have been selected. Among the European countries, London ranks first based on the assessment.

International Standard ISO 37120

The international standard ISO 37120 is formulated to systematically monitor and assess urban performance. With a focus on achieving sustainable development, this international standard factors in the comprehensive requirements of the entire city ecosystem. The underlying notion is to incorporate present consumption patterns and efficacy as part of future planning endeavours (ISO, 2014). This compilation of city indicators is meticulously chosen to guide and quantify the provision of urban services and the overall quality of life. There are 17 categories and 100 indicators, including 46 core indicators that cities report on and another 54 supporting indicators. Each category has 3–10 indicators. To uphold an ISO 37120 certification, the city undergoes annual recertifications. This process involves an independent third-party verifier assessing the city’s data. Certification levels, including platinum, gold, silver, bronze or aspirational, are assigned based on the self-updated data by the city.

The Case of Germany

In Germany, a joint initiative of all three associations of counties, cities and municipalities (Deutscher Städtetag, Deutscher Städte-und Gemeindebund und Deutscher Landkreistag) as well as research and policy-advising institutions and foundations (BBSR, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Difu, ICLEI European Secretariat, Rat der Gemeinden und Regionen Europas/Deutsche Sektion) interested in the topic of monitoring has managed so far to evaluate and, subsequently, since 2018, assemble a set of indicators. These indicators are relevant for the local, regional and national levels in order to measure sustainable development in a task-/demand-oriented way across all levels of governance—in most cases, covering the entire country (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2022).

As of 2022, all 17 SDGs are covered by indicators, resulting in altogether 118 indicators of relevance for municipalities, cities and counties in Germany. These indicators consist of 69 ‘type 1’ indicators and 49 ‘type 2’ indicators, that is, data are either well available from central and publicly available sources (type 1) or they are not well available (type 2) (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2022). Still, not all indicators may be measured against publicly available data—a phenomenon that is related more to the non-availability of data nationwide than to the data availability as such. Providing data for all indicators with higher granularity for analyzing the SDGs on a local level and comparing them with the global scale remains a challenge though.

The National Statistical Office of Germany (DESTATIS) also provides indicators and publicly available data in the same way as it regularly reports on the progress (or regress) of sustainable development in the country (DESTATIS, 2023). Its approach is nationwide and it also covers the ‘urban’ SDG 11 (make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), yet in a more general way by addressing seven SDG-11-related indicators (land use, open and green spaces, urban density, energy consumption of freight carriage, energy consumption of public transport, accessibility of small, medium-sized and large cities by public transport, and housing costs).

In the wave of the New Urban Agenda of the United Nations, endorsed by its General Assembly in 2017, a first National Progress Report on its implementation in Germany was published in 2021 (BBSR, 2021). This report, co-authored by the BBSR (Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development), Difu (Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik, in English: German Institute of Urban Affairs), and nine municipalities and cities of different sizes and geographical positions in the country—including an island community—(in alphabetic order: Baruth/Mark, Bremen, Cologne, Darmstadt, Eltville am Rhein, Juist, Mannheim, Niebüll and Stuttgart), was meant to provide the SDGs with an urban dimension. As no specific indicator system of the New Urban Agenda exists, the decision was taken to reference the report against the SDGs and its indicator system as aforementioned (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2018). The participating cities and municipalities reported in a data-based manner on their local situation and scaled-up this reporting to the level of the respective Länder in Germany (a level that is almost equivalent to a region) and the national level. The report thematically focuses on climate change, that is, mitigation as well as adaptation, and mobility in an urban-regional context (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2018).

However, at present, no dashboard in the purest sense of the terminology exists in Germany. This might be related to the fact that—although a societal understanding and commitment prevails—sustainability is a non-mandatory topic in and for the country, although a data-based National Sustainability Strategy is at hand (Bundesregierung, 2022) and in most Länder, respective sustainability strategies may be retraced (BBSR, 2021). According to the Constitution of Germany, municipalities, cities and counties are independent in their decision-making. A ranking of whatever sort seems inappropriate in that respect. Nevertheless, some institutions and foundations offer support to local authorities and societal groups by providing respective references, taking the SDG Portal as an example (Bertelsmann Stiftung, n.d.) or the INKAR Database (BBSR, 2023). An unpublished master thesis awarded by the Department of Geography of the University of Bonn in Germany developed some orientation values that might help local authorities to develop their own orientation schemes with regard to the SDGs (Bartsch, 2020). The ongoing 2023-Agenda-related process of elaborating and publishing VLRs in addition to VNRs or VSRs might serve as another example in Germany.

In 2000, RIAs were first included in the Joint Rules of Procedures of the federal ministries. But it was not until 2009 that SIA was anchored into the assessment, thus incorporating the assessment of potential environmental, economic and social outcomes of legislative suggestions into a fundamental aspect (German Federal Government, 2018). The Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development performs a formal review of the SIAs conducted by ministries. In the 18th legislative period (2017), the Council deemed around 92% of SIAs to be formally acceptable (Wanckel, 2023).

In 2018, the German Federal Government launched a digital tool for sustainability assessment known as eNAP. This tool was specifically developed to assist policymakers in evaluating the effects of proposed regulations and pinpointing possible connections with other policies, all aligned with the objectives of the Sustainability Strategy (German Federal Government, 2018). eNAP serves as a foundational prototype within a broader RIA framework, created in partnership with the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community. Notably, eNAP stands as one of the pioneering ICT tools tailored to streamline SIAs among EU member states (Wanckel, 2023). The structure of the interface is derived from the German Sustainable Development Strategy, which is based on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and comprises all 17 SDGs. Till 2019, the goals are measured in 38 areas using 66 key indicators. Within eNAP, there is a repository of indicators encompassing definitions, objectives and up-to-date statistical data. Additionally, the tool organizes the evaluation process by presenting visual representations of the advancements achieved. Though eNAP does not aim at making SIAs data-driven, it seeks to facilitate a qualitative contemplation of environmental, economic and social impacts by the enforcement and interdependencies between new policies (Wanckel, 2023).

Data Gaps and Institutional Challenges

In spite of the vast data ecosystem in India, there are several challenges related to the availability and accessibility of data for monitoring the progress (or regress) of achieving the SDGs at the city level.

The foremost challenge remains the unequal urban transformation across the country. Other than the rapid transformation in major cities, the rest of the urban areas, especially small towns, lack the digital infrastructure to collect, collate and maintain a systematic data system. This leads to their non-participation in various assessment framework initiatives. Second, a majority of the aforementioned initiatives under national-level flagship missions are not carried out in all the ULBs of the country. An example of this is the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF), launched under the Smart Cities Mission, which assesses and monitors only the cities that are part of the respective mission. Next, there is a lack of availability of data especially at the granular level to monitor the SDGs. Except for the Population Census of India, no other dataset provides disaggregated data beyond the district level. Availability of real-time data on CO₂ emissions, pollution and crime is limited to certain cities. Although the UOF 2022 supports the ULBs in collating granular data, generating such robust databases is challenging for smaller ULBs that are, generally speaking, institutionally weak.

Moreover, there is a lack of coordination among various departments and parastatal agencies. Though nodal officers have been appointed in various departments, the jurisdiction of agencies does not match, or the agencies are reluctant to share the data even within the governmental departments. In addition, with multiple assessment frameworks, there arise issues like overlapping and duplicity of information and efforts.

While some cities put in efforts to collect the required data efficiently, adhering to the prescribed standards, other cities lack the capacity to do so. This is particularly true for small- and medium-sized towns. It is essential to provide resources and training to officials to ensure the collection of quality data. Lastly, most of the aforementioned initiatives are ongoing or they have just completed the first or second phase of assessment. Regularity and cyclic continuation of the assessments needs to be maintained in order to monitor the achievements of the SDGs.

The complex situation in Europe and the EU in particular might be mirrored by a similarly complex situation in Germany. Apart from data gaps as described before and considering the presence of a data-based National Sustainability Strategy (Bundesregierung, 2022), the sustainability strategies of the Länder in Germany exhibit a notable diversity (BBSR, 2021). 14 out of the 16 Länder have explicit sustainability strategies, that is (in alphabetic order), Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hessen, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia. All of these strategies are measured against indicators, although their topics vary. Bremen and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania do not have (yet) any sustainability strategy, but they are obviously in favour of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs as well as own solutions and monitoring mechanisms oriented towards sustainability.

Given the diverse and distinct profiles of cities and municipalities, each with their own unique strengths and vulnerabilities, a universal and singular approach that suits every city does not seem feasible. This diversity, coupled with frequently unexplored potentials, underscores the necessity to pinpoint a city’s and community’s distinct array of attributes and resources.

RIAs and particularly SIAs are weakly institutionalized and lack effective control mechanisms and binding guidelines for a systematic assessment procedure. There seems to be a lack of consultation between different ministries on SIAs, affecting the assessment and ultimately directly influencing the potential impact on the law enforcement (Adelle & Weiland, 2015).

A Way Forward

Undoubtedly, India has made progress in promoting data-driven governance through strengthening the official statistical ecosystem at various levels. Furthermore, its recent initiatives in formulating several frameworks and indexes are noteworthy towards achieving the targets set by the 2030 Agenda. However, there are numerous gaps in the existing data ecosystem, which weaken the monitoring as well as the implementation of the SDGs, especially at the local level. Therefore, there is an urgent need to institutionalize the regular collection and collation of data, especially in the non-million plus cities. Unless the data is regularly updated, it will not be useful for policy-making and planning.

The state and local levels of government need to improve the existing data ecosystem(s). For this, capacity building of government officials to generate data at the local level and monitor the SDGs is required. Moreover, a cooperation between various departments for generating data and monitoring the SDGs in a coherent manner is essential.

A way forward in Europe would mean to upgrade the granularity of SDG-related data. Applying the lowest common denominator in Europe is one of the greatest challenges in providing data at the appropriate scale. Even if grid data or data on the level of a city or community are available in most countries, Eurostat would only be able to provide data on the lowest level to which every single EU Member State and EU Candidate Country can deliver. Against this background, harmonizing data and increasing its quality is crucial for monitoring the progress (or regress) of implementing the SDGs across Europe in the future.

In Germany, a respective step towards living and monitoring sustainability across levels, particularly with regard to the local level, has already been taken (Marszał et al., 2023). Municipalities, cities and counties are thus supported with expertise while developing, in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, VLRs. Their choice of topics and speed in writing determines the publishing date of the data. Some VLRs are ready, others still need time to mature. In order to combine quantitative (data-based) and qualitative (guiding-principle-oriented) approaches towards sustainability and thus ultimately mirror the reality of the daily life in counties, cities and municipalities, BBSR started in 2022 a research project on ‘Implementing the 2030 Agenda Locally through Urban Development’ (BBSR, 2022) and thus supports local and regional authorities of different sizes and geographical locations in the development of VLRs that are compatible across levels. The participating local and regional authorities of this project are currently in Germany (in alphabetic order) Cottbus, Eltville am Rhein, Eisenach, Lüdenscheid, Mannheim, Munich, Niebüll and the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region (BBSR, 2022)— other cities and municipalities also took part in the setting of the New Urban Agenda, as mentioned earlier. Similar approaches are taken elsewhere in the country (Engagement Global, 2022). The so-called municipal signatories of the specimen resolution on the 2030 Agenda are constantly growing; at present (as of 12 May 2023), 228 municipalities, cities and counties have committed themselves by signing the resolution (Engagement Global, 2023).

In any case, there is no best method available for assessing the sustainability of urban development. Every local and regional situation requires a specific perspective and quantitative as well as qualitative approaches. Nevertheless, vertical thinking and acting seems indispensable to achieving sustainability everywhere.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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