Local governments and authorities are increasingly singled out as key to European efforts to meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
“We estimate that a massive 65 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals’ 169 targets can only be reached by working closely together with local and regional authorities,” Neven Mimica, European commissioner for international cooperation and development, told a conference on decentralized development hosted by the European Committee of the Regions in Brussels on Monday.
He added that “localizing” the 2030 Agenda and the Consensus on Development — the European Union’s new development framework — is essential to eradicating poverty "once and for all."