With the declaration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the importance of localisation principles and, consequently, the local-level institutions in implementing development policies came to the forefront. India adopted a thematic approach by condensing the seventeen goals into nine themes, to be worked upon by the local administrative units, furthering that each Village Panchayat (constitutionally known as Grama Panchayats) should select a theme in a plan year and strive towards attaining it. For the South Indian state of Kerala, with its good trajectory of decentralised governance, this localisation process of SDGs was rather smooth. In this article, we discuss the case of the best-performing Grama Panchayat (GP) in Kerala, which has identified ‘Village with Self-Sufficient Infrastructure’ as the development theme. Through qualitative research methodology, we examine how the Panchayat included projects specific to this theme in the development plans and how the implementation helped produce effects on multidimensional aspects of SDGs using the SDG Impact Assessment Tool. The case studies of different infrastructure-based projects endorse that with proper planning and implementation of such projects, the lowest tier of administration can significantly contribute to the improvement of development goals. We have delineated full fund utilisation through convergence schemes, community participation, and strong monitoring mechanisms as the factors leading the selected Panchayat to be the champion of the cause. The accomplishment exhibited by the Panchayat by integrating SDGs into the Village Development Plan through the projects on the theme of self-sufficient infrastructure can be well emulated by other local bodies across the world.

The growth of buildings in big cities necessitates Design Review (DR) to ensure good urban planning. Design Review involves the city community in various forms; however, community participation remains very limited or even non-existent. There are indications that the community has not been involved in the Design Review process. Currently, DR tends to involve only experts and local government, without including the community. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze the extent of opportunities for community participation by exploring DR analysis in developed countries and related policies. In-depth interviews were also carried out with experts and Jakarta was selected as a case study since the city possessed the most intensive development. The results showed that the implementation of DR did not consider community participation. A constructivist paradigm was also applied with qualitative interpretive method by interpreting DR data and community participation. The strategy selected was a case study and library research adopted by examining theories from related literature. Additionally, the data was collected by reconstructing different sources such as books, journals, existing research, and secondary data from related agencies. Content and descriptive analysis methods were also used, where literature obtained from various references was analyzed to support research propositions and ideas.