India has made a policy choice to prioritize the institutionalization of the SDGs, not to look at sustainable development as a standalone or parallel framework but to make them an integral part of the national thinking about development. This Indian model of SDG localization is built around four foundational pillars: (i) creating institutional ownership; (ii) driving competition through collaborative competition; (iii) building capacities; (iv) adopting a whole-of-society approach. Given that under the Constitution of India, most of the responsibility for SDG themes lies with subnational governments and that their combined expenditure spending is often more than that of the central government, the 28 states and eight union territories (UTs) play a pivotal role in delivering the agenda. This brief presents successes and challenges from India’s SDG localization model, framed around four key insights that can inform efforts elsewhere to support the acceleration of the SDG agenda at the sub-national level.
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