This document summarizes the first debate in the Federal Pact seminar series: Municipalities for the 2030 Agenda, which aims to contribute to Brazilian political governance and the project of a sustainable Brazil, guided by the principle of decentralization. To this end, it presents the views of various experts regarding necessary structural improvements to Brazilian federalism and possible innovative arrangements in public management at its various levels. The discussion could not be more timely, given the political, economic, environmental, social – and health – contexts that the nation is experiencing, which we will also address in this report.

The series of debates is part of an initiative by the Institute for Democracy and Sustainability (IDS), the Global Cities Program of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEA-USP), ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the Ethos Institute, and the Sustainable Cities Program. It is worth remembering that the renewal of the Federal Pact was one of the recommendations of the IDS Platform, a collaborative effort to build a proposed agenda for the country, from the perspective of democracy and sustainability.

The first meeting in this series was held in person in November 2019, with the support of Unibes Cultural, in São Paulo, as a follow-up to a seminar held in May 2018 by IDS and IEA on the Federal Pact. It debated the role of local governments in the face of the climate crisis and questioned the adequacy of the Federal Pact to the needs of promoting mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Discussions focused on the Paris Agreement, the New Urban Agenda, and the 2030 Agenda through SDGs 10 (Reduced Inequalities), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 13 (Climate Action), 15 (Life on Land), and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).