National Urban Policies as Instruments for Global Urban Agendas Localization: Lessons From Argentina

This article examines how national urban policies (NUPs) function as instruments for localising global frameworks, including the New Urban Agenda and SDGs. Using Argentina’s NUP development (2017–2019) as the primary case and Neuquén’s provincial implementation as a comparative example, this analysis reveals how international sustainability frameworks are translated across governance levels. The research employs stakeholder interviews and documentary analysis to examine policy formulation and implementation processes. Findings reveal significant challenges limiting NUP effectiveness: governance coordination difficulties, limited policy innovation despite international technical support, insufficient implementation mechanisms, and vulnerability to political transitions. These challenges were exacerbated by Argentina’s recent political shift under President Milei’s administration, characterized by state retrenchment and multilateral framework rejection. Argentina’s experience demonstrates that although global frameworks function as “coalition magnets” during policy formulation, sustained implementation requires deeper institutional anchoring beyond international legitimacy alone. The contrast between national policy abandonment and Neuquén’s continued engagement illustrates how federal systems create institutional redundancy for policy resilience. The analysis contributes to policy localisation scholarship by revealing how institutional context, temporal dynamics, actor networks, and implementation mechanisms interact across governance scales. Despite limitations, NUPs remain valuable vehicles for SDGs localisation when developed with appropriate consideration of existing institutional arrangements and implementation pathways, offering lessons for post‐2030 sustainability agenda design in multilevel governance systems experiencing political volatility. The Argentine case particularly highlights how federal structures can enable subnational continuity even when national support disappears, suggesting the importance of multi‐scalar approaches to global framework implementation.