Cities are where sustainable development challenges like poverty and disaster risk are felt most acutely, particularly as the world’s population shifts to urban areas. But cities can also be incubators for the policies to address those challenges, and local leaders increasingly hold the keys to fostering inclusive growth and mitigating climate change.

Fortunately, city leaders across the globe are rallying behind sustainable development in all its dimensions: environmental sustainability, economic opportunity, and social inclusion. Mayors and local leaders were instrumental in securing a dedicated goal on inclusive and sustainable cities in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and framework of 17 high-level Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), signed by all member states at a historic summit last September. Since then, hundreds of local leaders have made commitments to support SDGs in their cities, forming new global networks and designing local implementation plans.

But what tools do city leaders need to drive progress on the SDGs?

In a roundtable hosted by the Wilson Center, Urban Institute scholars joined colleagues from the World Bank, Ford Foundation, and Sustainable Development Solutions Network to discuss how to build a local infrastructure that enables city leaders to support the SDGs. We started by recognizing the tremendous data gaps that plague many cities. In many cities in the developing world, data on basic service access or climate-related disaster risk are entirely missing. Even advanced economies lack shared metrics to compare and monitor progress across cities and regions.

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