By comparing the different realities, sharing ideas and solutions to common challenges with the support of the URBACT process and expertise, the cities build capacity for SDG localisation (among other things in stakeholder engagement and awareness-raising; new governance models, and  local indicators to monitor progress towards the SDGs).

The motivation for Gävle municipality's participation in the Global Goals for Cities network is to get support in the work of creating a holistic perspective of the sustainability work.

”With Agenda 2030 as a starting point, we want to see how we can find synergies internally and increase commitment and participation with external partners, businesses and inhabitants for a more sustainable Gävle”, says Keli Yen, project leader for the GG4C-project.

”We have a strong and systematic sustainability work in Gävle municipality, which is led through our three strategic programmes: Strategic Environmental Programme, Social Sustainability Programme and Business Development Programme. Since there are three separate programmes with different approaches, time perspectives and follow-up, there is a need to get a holistic perspective where we take advantage of synergies between the programmes and develop common approaches for, among other things, governance and communication. We see that the Global Goals for Cities gives us the opportunity to do so with Agenda 2030 as an umbrella.”

As part of the visioning phase, Gävle has developed a video ”The Good Life in Gävle 2030”.