Beyond “scaling down” the sustainable development goals: an evaluative framework for assessing subnational sustainability strategies

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends on localization, in which subnational governments translate global commitments into territorially grounded and operational policy frameworks. Empirical research, however, focuses on national alignment or a limited set of leading cities, leaving the intermediate regional and provincial tier underexamined and insufficiently benchmarked. This article addresses this gap by systematically comparing the subnational strategies for sustainable development (SSDs) adopted by Italian regions and autonomous provinces in 2025. Italy provides a testbed because SSDs are mandated nationwide, generating an unprecedented corpus of comparable strategy documents. Using qualitative content analysis and a coding protocol, we assessed seven dimensions of strategy design—including SDG coverage, balance, and density of Key Area (KA)-SDG mappings; implementation provisions; monitoring systems; financial integration; and internal coherence—and synthesized them into two composite indicators: an SDG Framing Index and a Completeness Index. Results show uniformly high nominal SDG coverage but substantial variation in integrated framing and, critically, in operational maturity, with monitoring systems and budget/programming linkages emerging as bottlenecks for feasibility and accountability. A threefold typology (aspirational, structured, and integrated) differentiates rhetorical alignment from strategies embedded in governance routines, budgets, and monitoring frameworks. While territorial disparities persist, several less-advantaged regions suggest that institutional design can partially offset capacity constraints. The study advances a transparent, replicable assessment framework and identifies policy priorities to strengthen vertical coordination, statistical capacity, and alignment with European and national funding streams, highlighting SDG-aligned monitoring systems and budget/programming linkages as key levers to enhance policy feasibility and accountability.