Professors Edgar Pieterse (the Director of the ACC and Co-Director of HCP) and Susan Parnell have authored a report for the GIZ entitled The 2030 Agenda: Sustainable Urbanization and the Research-Policy Interface-Issues for the G20 which argues that the G20 should approach the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development through the perspective of urbanisation. The starting point is that the rapid force of urbanisation is a powerful catalyst to advance all three aspects of a transition to sustainable development – social, economic and environmental – as set out in the 2030 Agenda. They argue that in addition to addressing the global architecture of urban governance and investment, it is clear that research will play a critical role in directing sustainable development action in ways that foreground urbanisation as a driver of global change and prioritize cities and towns as the dominant form of settlement and sphere of implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Given the centrality of the urban question, the report concludes that it is imperative for the G20 to skill up on cross-cutting urban issues, such as risk, food, infrastructure and health, if it is to provide overarching leadership in global policy implementation.
