Multilevel governance for sustainable urban development: Enhancing the role of cities and local authorities in national and international decision-making

Multilevel governance is emerging as a critical framework for addressing the converging global transformations of climate change, demographic shifts and technological revolution. Building on the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), multilevel governance combines vertical, horizontal and transnational coordination with an intent to link multilateral commitments with multistakeholder participation. This will help to ensure that policies are adapted to local contexts while remaining aligned with national and international priorities. Within the ECE region, the conceptualization of multilevel governance has evolved from early principles of coordination and participation through to institutional innovations such as the Forum of Mayors. Multilevel governance strengthens the implementation of international commitments, improves policy coherence, enhances legitimacy and trust, and supports crisis response and sustainable urban development. It empowers cities as innovation laboratories, enables mobilization of resources, and promotes foresight and predictive governance, particularly through the wise use of artificial intelligence (AI). Nevertheless, challenges remain across international, national, local, and civil society boundaries. These include geopolitical polarization, institutional silos, limited local capacity, and insufficient civic engagement. Strengthening multilevel governance requires structured and systematic integration of strong but agile principles that will: enable feedback loops, embed foresight and AI tools, reinforce fiscal autonomy and capacity-building, safeguard city diplomacy, and promote genuine co-creation with civil society. Multilevel governance represents the promise of a coordination process and a transformative governance paradigm essential for sustainable urban development and resilience in an era of accelerating change.