In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals (officially known as the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs). These goals have the power to create a better world by 2030, by ending poverty, fighting inequality and addressing the urgency of climate change.

Voluntary Local Review (VLR) is an instrument of local reporting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are a part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that was adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September 2015.

VLR addresses:

• Reporting (qualitative and quantitative data, official statistics, comparisons);
• Vision and opinions (stakeholders’ voices, policy, alignment to best practices).

VLR is a concept that is used to ensure that cities are meeting the demands of the Sustainable Development Goals. A Voluntary Local Review takes the necessary steps to monitor local achievements of a given city or region, to understand how well the Sustainable Development Goals are being implemented.

Nikolay Bobylev's lecture is conducted within The ACT! webinar series (that also makes for the MOOC of SDGs for Arctic and mountain sustainability) that portray a diversity of SDG-related issues and challenges in relation to the Arctic and mountain areas, and offer analytical overview of relevant cases.

More information on the topic is on SUNRAISE YouTube Channel (in Russian).