The Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (VVSG) has been organizing the Sustainable Municipality Week since 2018. The campaign is aimed at raising awareness on the SDGs and providing Flemish local governments, in Belgium, with practical tools for long-term sustainable and co-creative local policies among other things. There are three hundred Flemish municipalities and more than half of that number have joined the campaign. Each year one hundred local governments participate in the campaign where they communicate their local actions on the 2030 Agenda and the active contribution they wish to see from their citizens.
During the campaign week, participating municipalities will hoist an SDG flag at the city hall and celebrate their ‘sustainable heroes’. These heroes are local citizens, schools, businesses, and associations who contribute to one or more SDGs in their work or daily lives and therefore become the local faces of the 17 global goals. By working with an annual theme (e.g. climate, inclusion, education), cities and towns can highlight new heroes and projects every year.
Several Flemish municipalities already involved their international town twinning partners – from Senegal, Bolivia, South Africa, and Cameroon, among others – in the campaign. VVSG will provide additional support for this international component in the coming years, in order to also provide local governments outside Belgium with a campaign format to make the SDGs both better known and more tangible.
Participating municipalities, their heroes, photos, and stories are collected on the campaign website www.duurzamegemeente.be (only available in Dutch).
Find more information about the campaign here or watch videos about the campaign on VVSG’s youtube channel.
