1 Introduction

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a novel and contested approach to global governance on the range of development and environmental challenges that together constitute ‘sustainable development.’ Although global goal setting is not new, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that preceded the SDGs were limited thematically—with a focus on ‘traditional’ development issues, and geographically—to countries of the global south, in ways the SDGs are not. In contrast to the relatively technocratic process that yielded the MDGs, the SDGs emerged from a more open negotiation involving multiple stakeholders, state and non-state (Hajer et al., 2015). These differences—the SDGs’ all-encompassing coverage of global and local challenges combined with their universal applicability for all countries, including the global north, make them unique and highly ambitious at the same time.

The SDGs are composed not just of 17 goals, but also 169 targets that are meant to give specificity and substance to these broad global ambitions and 244 indicators selected to track global achievement. Each of these elements has been scrutinized and contested. The goals-framed approach itself, and the idea of sustainable development embodied by the SDGs, have both been critiqued (e.g., Van Norren, 2020; Weber & Weber, 2020). Commentators have debated whether the goals and targets set too little or too great an ambition (e.g., on different aspects, Fletcher & Rammelt, 2017; Winkler, 2018). Methodological challenges remain around their measurement (Mugellini et al., 2021; Shinwell & Cohen, 2020), raising questions whether the SDGs are genuinely measurable at all (Rodríguez‑Antón et al., 2022).

The SDGs have also revitalized, or brought into being, governance bodies and processes at different levels that can themselves be analyzed and critiqued (Beisheim & Fritzsche, 2022). Thematic and national review of the SDGs is centered around the annual High Level Political Forum (HLPF). A wide range of United Nations (UN) bodies and international organizations are involved, and their work at least partly focused on SDG implementation and evaluation. These actors include, notably, the Economic and Social Council of the UN, the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Statistical Commission, UN regional organizations and multiple development banks (van Driel et al., 2022).

The focus for this perspective is on how the SDGs work as a form of governance that might be effective in achieving the SDGs by 2030. The aim is to consider the goals (and their targets and indicators) as governance instruments, and this requires (1) developing a broader theoretical understanding of how the SDGs might work—an account of what Biermann et al. term ‘governance through goals’, (2) assessing progress and challenges around SDG governance since 2015 and (3) offering recommendations for the future.

2 Understanding and assessing ‘governance through goals’ (and targets, indicators, norms, and processes)

The conception of ‘governance through goals’ developed in a series of articles and books by Biermann, Kanie and others is a useful starting point for any analysis of the SDGs as a system of governance. ‘Governance through goals’ identifies four features of the approach to governance in the SDGs (summarized from Biermann et al., 2017):

  1. (1)

    It is largely detached from the international legal system;

  2. (2)

    It functions through relatively weak arrangements at intergovernmental level;

  3. (3)

    It works through the global inclusion and comprehensiveness of the goals-setting process;

  4. (4)

    It grants much leeway to national choices and preferences.

Features (1), (2) and (4) tell us what governance through goals is not—usefully highlighting some of the ways in which the SDGs are different (and arguably weaker) than other approaches to governance. Feature (3), the legitimacy and impetus acquired from the innovative goal-setting process that preceded the goals, is important to note—not least because it might facilitate the partnerships and collaboration that the goals demand. But these four features do not constitute an account of how the SDGs operate as a mode of governance. We can add some further details on the role of goals, targets and indicators from the contributions of scholars working across this framework. The goals and targets of the SDGs serve as benchmarks that focus attention and generate formalized commitments from governments that themselves serve to prompt action. On this model, “success will depend on institutionalized review mechanisms and clear and quantifiable benchmarks” (Biermann et al., 2017: 28), emphasizing the role of indicators that allow for progress to be tracked, and the review structures through which this tracking occurs.

‘Governance through goals’ frames the SDGs’ approach to governance as soft, operating through orchestration of different actors (Biermann et al., 2017) toward these common objectives. Orchestration involves the coordination and alignment of actions and initiatives by different actors at different levels of governance to achieve the SDGs (Kanie & Biermann, 2017). In all this, however, the mechanisms through which this orchestration will occur—how the SDGs steer or orchestrate the plans and actions of states and stakeholders—are still somewhat opaque (Morita et al., 2020). Drawing on the work of scholars and observations on the SDGs in action from 2015 to 2023, at least four mechanisms can be discerned as operating. The first is that international comparability and formal commitments serve to motivate action through competition, made visible in international rankings, pressure and loss of face—a kind of compliance mechanism based on a degree of ‘reputational’ accountability (Miola & Schlitz, 2019). The second is a process of learning, through which states and stakeholders learn from each other on how they are meeting and measuring SDG ambitions. Both of these are routes to policy diffusion. The third is through the emphasis on the added value of partnership and collaboration, between governments but also across multiple sectors of stakeholders. For all the rhetoric around the value of partnerships (e.g., UN/TPI, 2019), if the SDGs do bring about partnerships that are more than the sum of their parts. They also serve to direct those partnerships around goals where particular barriers or challenges remain; or somehow yield a more legitimate global governance regime, then, they make an important contribution to the success of governance through goals (Long et al., 2022) and thereby the SDGs.

The fourth, interrelated mechanism is that of norm diffusion. Though the title of this perspective focuses on goals, targets and indicators, Agenda 2030 is composed of norms as well as goals and the role of the SDGs in spreading norms of sustainable development should not be understated. Notably, candidate norms include leave no one behind; the integration and indivisibility of the goals and the need for policy coherence in response; multistakeholder partnership itself (Sondermann & Ulbert, 2021), as well as the controversial three/four ‘pillar’ model of sustainable development found in the SDGs. These norms are partly instantiated in the goals and targets, but also in the wider Agenda 2030. The institutions and processes surrounding the goals, and the ‘norm entrepreneurs’ surrounding each of these elements, are a significant part of how the SDGs operate as a model of governance.

3 Assessing progress and challenges in SDG governance since 2015

Between 2015 and 2023, there has been innovation across the institutions and processes central to this model of SDG governance. Though much of the format of the annual High-Level Political Forum has remained unchanged, more space for discussion of Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) has been created. Alongside discussion of VNRs in the main chamber, a series of VNR labs has been adopted to allow additional, informal space for discussion and learning (UN, 2023a) on national approaches to SDG targets and indicators. As of the end of the 2022 VNR cycle, 187 UN member states had submitted at least one review (UN, 2023d). In the context of governance through goals, the legitimacy conferred—and the degree of compliance indicated—by this global buy in should not be understated. The guidelines for VNRs themselves have been iterated multiple times since 2015, with newer versions more explicit on some of the norms of the SDGs, including coverage of leave no one behind and stakeholder participation in reviews. By 2023, these guidelines are widely followed, at least in the sense of shaping the form of a VNR (see, e.g., Long, 2023; Partners for Review 2021). Subnational administrations, especially regions and cities, are increasingly undertaking Voluntary Local Reviews of the SDGs (UN, 2023b), in a process that is becoming increasingly formalized (see, e.g., UN, 2023c). Given the importance placed on indicators in tracking (and so motivating) progress, it is important to note that the interagency expert advisory group on SDG indicators (IAEG-SDGs) has formulated, and made progress along, a roadmap for filling gaps in the global SDG indicator framework. For example, indicator 17.14.1 on policy coherence has been developed into a checklist of desiderata for national level SDG governance.

For all the regional, national, subnational, and thematic activity around the SDGs that has accompanied these developments, what is less clear is how far practice, especially on the part of governments, has changed. It is very common for countries to claim that they have ‘integrated’ the SDGs into national development plans and the like. However, the terms of this integration—for example, whether this has simply involved mapping the SDGs against activities that governments were already undertaking—are unclear. Despite arguments that the SDGs need new forms of governance (Meuleman & Niestroy, 2015), governance innovations in response to the SDGs seem limited. There are bright spots of course. The SDGs have supported and encouraged sustainable development law-making (e.g., Sri Lanka’s 2017 Sustainable Development Act, ILO, 2023), impact assessment processes (e.g., as detailed in Luxembourg’s 2022 VNR, UN, 2023e), stakeholder participation in policymaking and monitoring (e.g., Jamaica’s 2022 VNR, UN, 2023f), and mechanisms for cross-government coordination (e.g., in Argentina’s 2022 VNR, UN, 2023g).

It is a structural component of the SDGs that even though this is a universal agenda, it is to be nationally owned and implemented. This complicates any assessment of progress on SDG governance. States are free to interpret and adapt the agenda in their own context. This process lends itself to ‘cherry picking’ of goals and targets (Forestier & Kim, 2020), but also to meaningful change (e.g., Vietnam’s adoption of an additional national target [11.10] on rural sustainable development). National approaches to the SDGs, and to SDG reporting—how to measure the SDGs; how to evaluate progress; what, precisely, to integrate from this agenda—are diverse. It may be that over time, states and stakeholders need to become clearer on the line that separates use from abuse of the SDGs, and to identify when, despite lip service, states have disowned, rather than nationally owned, the SDGs.

In the meantime, the flexibility built into the SDGs’ approach to governance seems to pose a structural limit to the orchestration and compliance components of governance through goals, targets and indicators. The goals and targets of the SDGs are meant to be adapted to context; global indicators are meant to be supplemented by more purposeful national metrics, and states are meant to approach reporting and review mechanisms in different ways. The norms accompanying the SDGs, too, continue to be interpreted differently (Klasen & Fleurbaey, 2018). Furthermore, all this is not just true for states, but also for the other actors envisioned as integral to partnership and collaboration for the SDGs. Civil society organizations (CSOs) and the private sector have engaged with the SDGs in different ways, to different degrees, for diverse purposes. It continues to be true that the SDGs are what states (and stakeholders) make of them.

4 Conclusions and recommendations

By 2023, i.e., eight years into the SDGs, it is clear that the Goals are not somehow shifting the world by themselves, especially facing unfavorable global conditions. Integrated assessment model analysis suggests that global progress toward achieving the SDGs will remain limited at around 50% with challenges remaining for 28 must vulnerable countries, especially around upper secondary school completion, access to safe sanitation and underweight children (Moyer & Hedden, 2020). Research findings acknowledge a mix of progress against the targets in some pockets of innovation and specific sectors, but also point towards achievement gaps in other sectors and countries (Asadullah et al., 2020). Weak regulatory frameworks (Erin et al., 2022) and high fragmentation of governance institutions (van Driel et al., 2022) are identified as key challenges for SDG governance. The SDGs have facilitated a lot of talk, which allows for coordination, reflection and learning. They have also prompted action, though not on the magnitude that could fix our world’s problems by 2030.

The above analysis, however, suggests some potential avenues through which SDG governance could be more effective. VNRs or the spaces in which they are scrutinized, could become more critical and useful—for example, through a greater watchdog role for CSOs, or a more critical mood among states or the UN—in a way that would raise the reputational stakes. The UN eschews SDG league tables (Miola & Schlitz, 2019), but they are embraced by other actors at the global level (e.g., the Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s SDG index) and in country-level SDG frameworks (e.g., India’s competitive federalism). Increased stringency that narrowed the space for national interpretation, though, would risk the consensus that has accompanied the global goals so far.

Rather than place the emphasis on reform at a distinctly ‘global’ level, it might be that a different approach would reflect on how other actors in multi-level processes of global governance, for example, regional organizations, including multilateral development banks, and CSOs, could contribute. These actors might also have roles to play in learning around the goals—multilateral development banks, for example, are teachers as well as financiers. This question, of how intergovernmental institutions, the national and local levels, and civil society can contribute to a more effective implementation of the SDGs, is one avenue for further research (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen et al., 2022).

There are pockets of innovation and effective implementation across levels and actors around the SDGs, but indicators and targets have so far had limited success in facilitating a reflection on each other’s progress and learning from best practices that would support a systematic up-scaling across governance levels, especially in a way that allows for socio-economic justice (Gupta & Lebel, 2020) and improved policy integration between goals (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen et al., 2018). Another research agenda, then, asks how these successes could be scaled up, and how learning around them might be best promoted, in ways that improve such policy integration.

As laudable and innovative the orchestration approach of setting global goals and developing a roadmap through targets and indicators is, it so far falls short of being able to close the ambition gap between the universal 2030 goals and their achievement. This also raises a credibility risk the closer we get to 2030, and it becomes clear that not all goals will be achieved everywhere. Were the SDGs merely aspirational? Or was the timeline unachievable? As institutions and actors make progress along the goals, we also need to manage expectations and open avenues for working toward the SDGs beyond the 2030 deadline.