The policy paper presents the results of an OECD-European Committee of the Regions joint survey on how local and regional governments are leveraging the SDGs to shape their recovery strategies from the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings underline a solid engagement of local and regional governments in...

Before the pandemic hit, the city of Bilbao had the highest economic growth in Spain from 2000 to 2018, driven by a shift from heavy industry to a service-based economy. It also benefitted from a burgeoning tourism and culture sector, thanks to developments such as the Guggenheim Museum in 1998....

Cities have a pivotal role to play in achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Smart city solutions can help enable and accelerate the net-zero transition by, among many others, curtailing energy use, accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, improving resource efficiency,...

Decentralised development cooperation (DDC), or partnerships for sustainable development between cities and regions in developed and developing countries, can help drive major global agendas forward. Achieving a sustainable, equitable and resilient future requires action from subnational...

At a time when many cities and countries are including a smart recovery component in their strategies to rebound from the COVID-19 crisis, the simple presence of digital technologies does not mean that benefits automatically reach everyone. Measuring smart city performance is therefore critical...

This paper aims to provide guidance to the Zuid-Holland province (The Netherlands) and its partners on developing their post-COVID 19 Joint Growth Agenda. It draws on broader OECD analysis of cities’ policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis, the OECD Principles on Urban Policy and the OECD...

STRING is a political cross-border organisation spanning five cities (the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Copenhagen, Malmö, Gothenburg and Oslo) and eight regions (Schleswig-Holstein, Region of Southern Denmark, Region Zealand, Capital Region of Denmark, Region Skåne, Region Halland,...

Although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not integrated explicitly into the main urban development plans of the city of Moscow, the local government has started using them as a checklist to assess the contribution of its sectoral programmes to sustainable development, as well as...