The voluntary national review (VNR) is a process through which countries assess and present national progress made in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The VNR is a country-led and country-driven process which aims to facilitate the sharing of experiences, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned, with a view to accelerating the SDG implementation. VNRs are not only a reporting mechanism to periodically take stock, but also a tool to continuously reflect on and improve the SDG implementation process itself. VNRs also seek to strengthen policies and institutions of governments and to mobilize multistakeholder support and partnerships for SDG acceleration.
Next generation VNRs enable countries to show development since the previous VNR by deepening impact and trend analysis, increasing localization, reviewing resource mobilization, and improving engagement with stakeholders. National Reviews can also indicate emerging challenges, which is particularly important in the context of ongoing crises of climate change, geopolitical uncertainties, and economic slowdown.
All countries in North and Central Asia have completed and reported at least one VNR. Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan presented their second VNR in 2023; while Azerbaijan is preparing their fourth VNR in 2024. Countries in North and Central Asia were the pioneers of ESCAP’s flagship VNR Twinning Programme, which has been running since 2019. VNR Twinning Programme, which has been running since 2019, with Armenia and Georgia supporting respectively Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for the preparation of their first VNR.
The aim of the VNR workshop is to facilitate the exchange of good practices in preparing VNRs and present ESCAP’s support for the VNR process It will provide an overview of ESCAP’s VNR support opportunity to discuss the role of VNRs as enablers for multistakeholder partnerships and improve policy frameworks to accelerate SDG implementation.
The VNR workshop is an associated event of the Seventh North and Central Asia Multistakeholder Forum on Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
More information about VNR https://www.unescap.org/2030-agenda/voluntary-national-reviews
