Universal SDG review mechanisms remain indispensable, but BRICS can reinforce implementation through more continuous and sector-focused peer engagement
As the 2030 deadline approaches, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at a pivotal juncture. Launched in 2015 under the United Nations (UN) as a shared roadmap for people, planet, and prosperity, the 17 goals were designed to balance national priorities with collective global action. Nearly a decade on, the picture is mixed. Some countries and sectors have made tangible progress, driven by sustained political focus and sectoral innovation. Others, however, continue to struggle amid financial pressures, institutional gaps, and growing geopolitical uncertainty.
This uneven progress points to a deeper challenge. The challenge is not solely one of resources or ambition, but also of institutional capacity. The SDGs operate as commitments under international soft law rather than legally binding obligations, relying on political will, peer engagement, and review processes to encourage implementation. Sustainable development cannot advance on declarations alone; it requires systems that track progress, identify structural bottlenecks, and enable timely course correction. As 2030 approaches and discussions turn to what follows, the question is whether existing review mechanisms are sufficient or whether complementary platforms such as BRICS can help reinforce implementation.
Sustainable development cannot advance on declarations alone; it requires systems that track progress, identify structural bottlenecks, and enable timely course correction.
At the global level, this review function is anchored in the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). Through Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), the HLPF provides visibility, encourages peer learning, and sustains political engagement with the 2030 Agenda. Its voluntary and country-led design has helped preserve broad participation and national ownership.
The architecture is not without structure. The Secretary-General’s Voluntary Common Reporting Guidelines and the VNR Handbook offer detailed support for inclusive, evidence-based reporting and encourage transparency in assessing both progress and gaps. Yet their advisory character, combined with wide discretion over content and follow-up, results in considerable variation in analytical depth, comparability, and sustained follow-through. In the absence of systematic mechanisms to revisit identified shortcomings, reporting can become episodic rather than cumulative, prioritising presentation over sustained policy adjustment.
Certain institutional features of the HLPF reinforce these constraints. The Forum’s short annual review window limits sustained dialogue and the trust-building often required for more ambitious agreements. Outcomes are shaped through consensus among nearly 200 states, a process that can dilute specific follow-up measures. Debates over indicators and metrics, while technically necessary, have also become politicised, thereby narrowing ambition and reducing incentives for policy adjustment. As a result, the review process risks functioning as a reporting exercise rather than a mechanism for corrective action.
These limitations become more visible as 2030 nears. When progress stalls, the absence of systematic follow-up makes it difficult to distinguish temporary setbacks from deeper implementation failures. The 2015 negotiations demonstrated the value of sustained, evidence-based stocktaking in protecting ambition from narrow political compromise. Without a similarly rigorous process after 2030, review could drift toward minimal-consensus reporting that reaffirms commitments without confronting the underlying political, financial, and institutional constraints shaping outcomes. The credibility of the agenda, therefore, depends not on the number of commitments made but on demonstrable learning, transparency, and policy adjustment that connect stocktaking more effectively with implementation.
Current global pressures, such as climate shocks, debt distress, and conflict-driven humanitarian crises, further push governments toward short-term crisis management, increasing the importance of review mechanisms that maintain continuity, visibility, and oversight. Universal platforms such as the HLPF remain indispensable for legitimacy and agenda-setting. Yet the scale and diversity of the agenda limit any single forum’s capacity to engage deeply with implementation challenges across all contexts. This underscores the need for complementary approaches: smaller, focused groupings that can reinforce global review through structured peer engagement and cooperation-based accountability.
In this context, BRICS offers a potential plurilateral layer that can strengthen SDG-linked review without replicating or replacing the UN framework. Representing nearly 40 percent of the world’s population and over a quarter of global GDP, BRICS reflects a significant concentration of demographic and economic weight. Its expanding membership and regular summit cycle position it as an increasingly relevant actor in global development governance.
BRICS offers a potential plurilateral layer that can strengthen SDG-linked review without replicating or replacing the UN framework. Representing nearly 40 percent of the world’s population and over a quarter of global GDP, BRICS reflects a significant concentration of demographic and economic weight.
Importantly, BRICS countries encompass diverse development pathways, institutional capacities, and policy priorities. Not all members align uniformly across all SDGs, nor do they advance at the same pace. This diversity makes a universalised approach to monitoring difficult, while also underscoring the need for more focused, context-sensitive forms of review within existing areas of cooperation. Rather than attempting to engage uniformly with the entire SDG framework, BRICS discussions increasingly intersect with specific SDG-linked sectors where cooperation mechanisms and implementation platforms are already emerging.
This is particularly relevant in areas where BRICS cooperation is already institutionalised through development finance, ministerial coordination, and technical working groups. By the end of 2021, the New Development Bank’s project portfolio was aligned with 11 SDGs, with the largest share of committed financing directed toward SDG 9 on Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (29 percent), followed by SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities (15 percent), SDG 8 on Decent Work and Economic Growth (14 percent), and SDG 7 on Affordable and Clean Energy (13 percent). This alignment is especially visible in sectors such as clean energy, sustainable urban development, and climate action, where NDB-supported investments in renewable energy, urban infrastructure, and green technologies contribute to broader low-carbon transition objectives. Member states also advance poverty reduction (SDG 1), food security (SDG 2), public health (SDG 3), education (SDG 4), and gender equality (SDG 5) through domestic initiatives reinforced by knowledge-sharing platforms such as the BRICS Network University. More broadly, these initiatives also reinforce South–South cooperation through institutional partnerships, policy coordination, and shared development platforms across BRICS sectors. In this context, monitoring should move beyond broad declarations to assess whether financing commitments are translated into measurable outcomes, whether sectoral initiatives address implementation bottlenecks, and whether cooperation platforms facilitate policy continuity across member states.
Because BRICS operates with a smaller membership base and established ministerial platforms, consensus-building may be more sustained and less diluted than in larger universal forums. Its geopolitical weight allows it to mobilise a critical mass of actors despite its limited size, positioning it to function as an intermediary between global ambition and national delivery realities. Unlike the HLPF, where review spans the full breadth of the SDG agenda across nearly 200 countries, BRICS operates through a smaller, sectorally focused structure. This creates greater potential for sustained peer engagement, continuity in follow-up, and clearer links between political commitments and delivery mechanisms. If the HLPF provides universal legitimacy, BRICS can contribute to implementation follow-through.
Institutionally, BRICS already maintains a Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development (CGCCSD). However, much of its engagement remains climate-centric. Rather than creating additional institutional bodies, existing mechanisms such as the CGCCSD could provide an entry point for broader SDG-linked coordination and review within ongoing cooperation frameworks. This would allow greater continuity across sustainable development discussions while avoiding institutional overload. Strengthening this existing structure, rather than proliferating new bodies, could provide a practical pathway for embedding SDG-linked review functions within ongoing cooperation frameworks. A calibrated expansion of its mandate to include broader sustainable development monitoring could reinforce continuity without creating additional institutional burdens.
By embedding structured and evidence-based review practices within its existing cooperation architecture, BRICS could strengthen continuity, comparability, and follow-through across key development sectors.
A structured yet adaptable peer-review mechanism could further strengthen credibility. Short annual reporting cycles, using common templates covering commitments, financing flows, implementation indicators, and policy constraints, would improve comparability and continuity across review periods. These updates could be embedded within existing ministerial tracks and consolidated ahead of global review processes such as the HLPF. Such an approach would not create binding enforcement, but it could strengthen transparency, encourage policy adjustment, and reinforce cooperation-based accountability.
Universal platforms such as the HLPF remain essential for legitimacy, agenda-setting, and inclusive participation. However, the growing complexity of sustainable development governance also requires complementary mechanisms that can sustain implementation-focused engagement between global review cycles. In this context, BRICS can reinforce SDG-linked delivery without replicating or replacing the UN framework. By embedding structured and evidence-based review practices within its existing cooperation architecture, BRICS could strengthen continuity, comparability, and follow-through across key development sectors. In doing so, it could also demonstrate how plurilateral platforms can complement universal multilateralism by addressing implementation challenges more directly in an increasingly fragmented global order.
Sandra Thachirickal Prathap is a Research Assistant with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Sandra Thachirickal Prathap is a Research Assistant with the Observer Research Foundation’s (ORF) Strategic Studies Programme (SSP). Her research examines the geopolitical dynamics of the Global ...
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