Amazon Basin. Photo: Siddharth Saxena / Flickr .

The regional dimension of sustainable development is a critical factor in providing an effective and coordinated global response to achieving the SDGs. Regional action can contribute to national plans and address cross-border challenges to achieving sustainable development. Regions such as the Amazon, for example, are key to creating collective and transboundary efforts towards the implementation and mainstreaming of the 2030 Agenda at different scales. In the Amazon region, there are eight member countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO): Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. Each country has its own complexities, levels of development, availability of data, and political divisions, which generates challenges in calculating and reporting the SDG indicators.

This study adopts an SDG Localization approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the level of implementation of the SDGs in the Amazon region. The project combines statistical analysis, desk research, interviews, and workshops to assess the implementation of SDGs 6 and 13 in the region according to the following notions:

  • SDG 6 and 13 indicators
  • Early warning systems
  • Public policy instruments for alignment and implementation of the SDGs
  • Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)
  • Multi-level governance
  • Policy coherence
  • Public-private partnerships
  • Financing
  • Local and community knowledge

The findings from this study will give an overview of the governance and level of progress of water and climate-related issues in the Amazon region, and they will help discover areas of opportunity for policy intervention to accelerate SDG progress in the Amazon.