Welcome to the United Nations 
OHCHR 
Voluntary National Reviews
OHCHR and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
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VNRs have helped build knowledge and data and offered practical pathways to dismantle structural barriers that hold us back. Over the past decade, they have inspired action through inclusive, scalable approaches, grounded in local realities.
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Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General at the 2025 HLPF
Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) are a process through which countries assess and present national progress made in implementing the 2030 Agenda, including achieving its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the pledge to leave no one behind.
The purpose of VNRs - are a soft accountability and progress monitoring mechanism of the 2030 Agenda - is to present a snapshot of where the country stands in the implementation of the SDGs to help accelerate progress through experience sharing, peer-learning, identifying gaps and good practices, and mobilizing partnerships.
As the 2030 Agenda is grounded in human rights, important links can be made between the implementation of the country’s human rights obligations and assessing progress in achieving a just and transformative sustainable development that leaves no one behind. With over 440 reviews conducted or planned since 2016, VNR process has gained much traction, visibility, and national buy-in, and offers a valuable opportunity for advancing human rights at the country level.
OHCHR works with Member States, the RCOs and UN Country Teams, NHRIs, civil society and other stakeholders to strengthen their capacity to integrate a human rights lens in the VNR process, including making the relevant links with the country-focused work of the international human rights mechanisms. Human rights analysis can strengthen reporting on SDGs that have corresponding human rights (e.g. water, health, housing). It can guide data collection and analysis efforts and help identify groups at risk of being left behind, those furthest behind, and ways of effectively addressing their situation. Systematically linking the 2030 Agenda reporting and follow up with reporting to international human rights mechanisms and with the implementation of the national human rights agenda also helps reduce reporting burdens and accelerate progress under both agendas.