From Ballarat to Bangkok: how can cross-sectoral partnerships around the Sustainable Development Goals accelerate urban liveability?

ABSTRACT

The UN Global Compact – Cities Programme sponsors cross-sectoral partnerships to further the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda at the local level. The paper situates urban liveability and action on it at the local level through the Sustainable Development Goals. It describes a City Partnerships Australia project (Ballarat) and a Bangkok liveability project, and explores findings to date. Here we are concerned with cities that have already committed to work together to co-design, build capacity and deliver city projects to enhance urban liveability, addressing the key city challenges of inequality, accountability and sustainability. This practice paper documents and reflects upon two partnered projects and, in particular, the prospects for their contribution to liveability and related public health outcomes. Across arenas of governance, scale and thematic priorities, cities face common challenges and capability needs. This cross-case assessment provides insights into the efficacy of the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda as common platforms for the necessarily wide range of interest groups required to progress liveability projects in the regional city of Ballarat, Australia, and Bangkok, Thailand.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban
• liveability
• sustainable

Acknowledgements

The UN Global Compact is the UN’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme and the Cities Programme international secretariat is hosted at RMIT University, Australia. The Bangkok Liveability Case Study was funded by a VicHealth Sustainable Development Goals Partnership Grant. HB is an RMIT Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow and the Australian Health Promotion Association Thinker in Residence. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the work and input of the staff of the City of Ballarat.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ballarat City Council and VicHealth Sustainable Development Goals Partnership Grant. HB is supported by an RMIT University Vice-Chancellor Senior Research Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Ralph Horne

Professor Ralph Horne is a geographer interested in urban sustainability, in particular, low carbon transitions in housing and households. The spatial, material and contingent social and policy structures at play are the main focus of his work on both the making and shaping of urban environments. He is Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor, Research and Innovation for the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University. He combines research leadership and participation in research projects concerning the environmental, social and policy context of production and consumption in the urban environment.

Joana Correia

Joana Correia manages Project Development for the UN Global Compact – Cities Programme International Secretariat, hosted by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She plays a key role in brokering cross-sectoral partnered projects involving local government, private sector and civil society organisations focused on sustainable development. She also designs and delivers cross-sectoral engagement initiatives. Joana has over 10 years of international experience spanning architectural practice, urban development, project management and humanitarian aid. She holds a Bachelor Honours degree in Architecture (2008) and was awarded a Master of International Urban and Environmental Management from RMIT University (2015).

Hannah Badland

Associate Professor Hannah Badland is a Principal Research Fellow based in the Centre for Urban Research, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She has worked on two NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence covering health, liveability, and disability and has been an investigator in a 14-country built environment and health study. Hannah was the inaugural Australian Health Promotion Association Thinker in Residence and is a Salzburg Global Fellow. Awarded a Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellowship in 2017, Hannah examines how the built environment, through the social determinants of health, is connected to health, wellbeing, and inequities in diverse population groups internationally.

Amanda Alderton

Amanda Alderton is a Research Officer and PhD Candidate at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University. She currently provides project management support to a partnership project involving an international collaboration between researchers and policymakers in Melbourne and Bangkok (project title: ‘Measuring, monitoring, and translating urban liveability in Bangkok’). Her PhD research investigates the relationships between the neighbourhood built environment and early childhood mental health. She was awarded a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne (2018) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours in History) from UC Berkeley (2013).

Carl Higgs

Carl Higgs is a spatial analyst / data scientist in the Health Liveable Cities Group in the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University. Carl has developed methods for creation of policy relevant spatial measures of liveability and the built environment at a range of scales from address level through local neighbourhood and city scales, which have been applied and generalised for use in towns and cities across Australia since 2016 and more recently internationally. He completed a Master of Public Health (Epidemiology and Biostatistics) in 2015, followed by a Master of Biostatistics in 2018 at University of Melbourne.