Part of the Special Event of the 2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development under the auspices of ECOSOC the Joint Research Centre and partner organisations invite you to the learning session Supporting Covid-19 Recovery and SDG implementation at local level: governance, tools and experiences.

The session discusses perspectives on Supporting post-pandemic Recovery and SDG implementation, highlighting tools developed by institutions, experiences from local actors and a scientific review of governance approaches. Focus are the benefits of Earth observations (EO) for SDGs mapping and monitoring, followed by a practical application via the Degree of Urbanisation Method. Special attention is devoted to SDGs as a framework for the New Urban Agenda. The multi-disciplinary and multi-regional demonstration is supported by a critical review of legal, governance tools and policy perspectives of SDGs.

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Session purpose and objectives

Urban and rural areas face COVID-19 differently and require different recovery approaches. This session explores the connections between Earth Observation (EO) data and policy making to support an effective post-pandemic recovery within a sustainable urbanisation. The objectives of the session are to:

1. Introduce audience to EO principles, advantages and limitations for SDGs implementation and monitoring.
2. Illustrate EO data and tools included in the Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements for monitoring and visualisation of potential COVID-19 impact on populations of different attributes and levels of urbanisation.
3. Showcase worldwide available data and tools to support sustainable urbanisation, to assess and mitigate risks linked with epidemic spreads, and to monitor the access to infrastructure and facilities in high demand during pandemics.
4. Demonstrate the use of an open source SDG Sensemaking tool to help cities align indicators and recovery strategies with the Agenda 2030.
5. Share an overview of the governance tools used in supranational, national, regional, and local levels to promote sustainable environmental and urban policies, with the support of local case studies: an exploratory study will show how economists and organizations are proposing measures to mitigate the impacts of the disease on the economy and society.

Agenda

The training features a blend of presentations, global case studies and practical demonstrations. After a short introduction, the EO4SDG Initiative illustrates the scientific information sourced from Earth observations to populate and monitor urban SDGs and the New Urban Agenda (25 min). Next, the JRC showcases the Degree of Urbanisation, a globally acknowledged method to facilitate SDGs tracking in urban and rural areas, explaining how to apply it (25 min). The city of Espoo demonstrates how to map urban phenomena to SDGs: key SDGs, their targets and indicators are identified (25 min). Finally, the Nova School of Law presents a selection of case studies, covering several governance levels, regions worldwide, and diverse perspectives on environmental and urban policies (25 min).

Partner organisations 

JRC Contact point: Pietro.Florio@ec.europa.eu