CHALLENGES IN LOCAL INDICATOR FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS LOCALIZATION: A CRITICAL REVIEW

The localization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Local Government Units has emerged as a critical pathway for achieving the 2030 Agenda, with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) in India developing a Local Indicator Framework (LIF) to guide implementation.However, this review identifies significant challenges in the LIF approach, particularly regarding target complexity and local actor understanding.Through comprehensive analysis of 87 academic sources and policy documents, this study reveals that many UN SDG targets are complex sentences encompassing multiple themes and sectors, creating comprehension barriers for local stakeholders.The research demonstrates that target complexity scores range from 7-10 on a 10-point scale, with "Actor Understanding" and "Local Context Mismatch" emerging as the most critical challenges.In Kerala, despite ranking first nationally in