Sustainable Development Goals in a Transforming World: Understanding the Dynamics of Localization

This paper investigates the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the context of an interconnected, multi-scale world. As global challenges intensify, policy frameworks must navigate the complex intersection of social, economic, and environmental threats to human development. The United Nations SDGs offer a common language and a roadmap with a standard set of development indicators. However, the current lack of progress reveals the need for context-specific implementations of this universal model reflecting and responding to local realities, challenges, and capacities. By combining a systematic literature review with qualitative and quantitative coding via MAXQDA, this study applies grounded theory to analyze how the growing body of research conceptualizes and operationalizes SDG localization. The findings identify key mechanisms, themes, and case studies that illustrate how SDGs are adapted to local contexts. The analysis highlights the critical role of agency, emphasizing that localization is not merely a top-down implementation but a dynamic process that aligns global goals with local governance structures, actors, and tools to foster ownership and long-term impact. Importantly, the study underscores that cities and local governance entities are not just sites of implementation but active drivers of SDG adaptation, serving as crucial policy spheres that transform a global agenda into concrete local action.