The Voluntary Local Review (VLR) of Amman: Accelerating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

With four million inhabitants, the Jordanian capital is home to around 40 per cent of the country’s total population. In 2021, Amman’s city administration, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), decided to create a VLR – the first in the Arab region. In the summer of 2022, the VLR was finalised and presented together with the Voluntary National Review (VNR) at the UN High-Level Political Forum in New York.

The VLR has proven to be a complete success – both as an analytical tool and as a process:

• An ‘ecosystem’ for collecting validated data has been developed.
• Sustainability goals (SDGs) were integrated into various areas of policy, strategy development and administrative action.
• New formats for citizen participation were trialled.
• New projects and partnerships were initiated and ongoing ones strategically interlinked;
• The digitalisation of the administration is very advanced.

The simultaneous creation of VNR and VLR ensured policy coherence and mutual support between the two levels.