We are very pleased to publish PASCAL Briefing Paper 23 entitled, Local challenges, global imperatives: Cities at the forefront to achieve Education 2030.

How can cities ensure successful planning to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) by 2030? This has been the central question posed by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) research programme ‘Local Challenges, Global Imperatives: Cities at the Forefront to Achieve Education 2030’. Faced with a global learning crisis, cities, through their local elected governments and local and regional education offices, are playing a crucial role in ensuring access to universal quality education on their territory, acting as privileged partners of ministries of education. Implemented in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods at the University of Glasgow and a number of research institutes around the world, the project explored in a diverse group of cities the priority given to education, the policy formulation process and actors involved, the challenges faced and innovative strategies to build upon. Two of the institutions implementing this work, the University of the Philippines and the University of Khulna, Bangladesh are part of the directorship of PASCAL Asia. In this Briefing Paper, we summarise their work in this project.