The world is currently undergoing an unprecedented transformation. Climate change is occurring at the same time as mass urbanization, and the trend is expected to continue as people all over the globe seek an easier life and better economic opportunities in urban areas. Rapid urbanization puts stress on local services and governments that are faced with growing populations in need of housing, education, and employment while having to simultaneously adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. Sustainable development is thus a global necessity that goes beyond the scope of national governments; mismanaged development has societal, economic, and environmental effects that have global repercussions. To address a need of this scale, multilateral institutions have increased their efforts towards supporting the development of sustainable cities.

This thesis aims to a) understand the extent to which multilateral sustainable city initiatives can contribute to sustainable development at the local level; b) recognize how the three-dimensional understanding of sustainable development is applied in multilateral sustainable city initiatives; and to c) explore under what conditions multilateral initiatives possess the most opportunity. To do this, it provides a brief overview of urbanization and climate change to set the context for why this topic is of utmost importance in contemporary times. It then examines what is meant by sustainable development and establishes that it embodies social, economic, and environmental components, revealing that the social and economic aspects are arguably prioritized over the environmental.

Sustainable development efforts are then placed in the context of three multilateral sustainable city initiatives, the Global Environment Facility's (GEF) Sustainable Cities IAP, the World Bank's Eco 2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities Initiative (Eco 2), and the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI). Upon analyzing the methodology of the ESCI in particular, a brief examination of how the initiative has advanced on the ground in La Paz, B.C.S, Mexico and Montego Bay, Jamaica is considered. What is found is that the ESCI methodology has the potential to create lasting change by influencing alternative initiatives, but the lack of financing and thus dependence on both the public and private sector results in it not reaching its full potential.