🔴 Policy Debate: Territorial Approach to the Post-2030 Agenda

📍 Room: Patio Grande | 🔗 Zoom link(not yet available) | 💬 Interpretation : English - French - Spanish - Turkish

The growing recognition that the 2030 Agenda is off track calls for a fundamental rethinking of how sustainable development is governed, financed, and implemented across territories. With only a limited share of SDG targets advancing at the required pace, current approaches are falling short of addressing the scale, complexity, and interdependence of global challenges. At the same time, mounting pressures on shared resources, deepening inequalities, and rapid urbanization highlight the disconnect between global commitments and territorial realities. In this context, a territorial approach emerges as a critical pathway to bridge this gap, positioning local and regional governments at the forefront of integrated, place-based responses that reflect the lived conditions of communities while safeguarding the commons. This reflection is aligned with UCLG proposed work plan, which emphasizes the need to connect territorial realities, multilevel governance, and the renewal of global agendas.

Conceived as a space for exchange in the lead-up to the 2027 SDG Summit, the latest before the 2030 deadline, this debate invites participants to reflect on whether the current framework has effectively supported territorial realities, and to identify where adjustments may be required for the next global development cycle. By raising these themes, the session contributes to a broader international reflection on the potential need for a renewed common framework. This discussion seeks to surface common priorities, tensions, and ambitions that can inform a collective voice moving forward. In doing so, it lays the foundation for a coherent and proactive contribution of territorial perspectives to the evolving global agenda, while also feeding into the political discussions that will continue in Tangier as the political horizon for crystallization of such renewal.