Framing the Voluntary Local Review Movement.

This presentation introduces Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs), tracing their history and development since 2018, when the local governments of Kitakyushu, New York, Shimokawa, and Toyama presented the first ever reviews of progress of the local implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York. The presentation looks back at the VLR reports published between 2018 and 2020 to question why are VLRs growing in importance among local and regional governments worldwide. The presentation argues that VLRs help to make sense of the SDGs at the local level, fostering policy coherence, facilitating vertical integration between different levels of government, and providing a framework to monitor progress towards the SDGs.