What is a Voluntary National Review (VNR)?
A Voluntary National Review is a country-led report presented at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development that documents a Member State’s progress, challenges and next steps on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. These reviews serve as the backbone of follow-up and review for the 2030 Agenda, with an emphasis on inclusive national processes, evidence and lessons that accelerate implementation.
Domestically, VNRs promote accountability by bringing ministries and stakeholders together to align plans, budgets and data around results; internationally, they enable peer learning and exchange of practical lessons.
What did countries share about their Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs) in the 2025 VNRs?
In 2025, 35 countries presented their VNRs at the HLPF. Out of these 35 reviews, 10 countries highlighted their INFFs as central tools for aligning plans and financing with the SDGs. This shows that through INFFs, countries have moved from pilot concepts to mainstream instruments, leveraging structured ways to map financing flows, set strategies and strengthen governance. The 2025 reviews underline how national financing systems are being reshaped to deliver results more consistently and effectively.
🇦🇴 Angola (report link)
Angola’s review presents their INFF as a key policy tool to scale financing for the National Development Plan 2023–2027 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It links the framework to climate finance for nationally determined contributions, including opportunities under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, and to broader efforts on domestic resource mobilisation, export diversification under the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) and proactive debt management to protect fiscal space.
🇧🇹 Bhutan (report link)
Bhutan reports that, through a joint programme on the INFF with UN agencies, it has laid the groundwork for diversified financing strategies. Outputs include improvements in budgeting, a review of the public-private partnership policy, a 2023 Public Debt Management Policy, sector strategies such as the Renewable Natural Resources innovative financing strategy and an emergency health financing strategy. A Green Taxonomy was approved in March 2024, and a Sustainable Financing Framework for issuing green and social bonds is being finalised, alongside work on carbon trading and exploration of a debt-for-nature swap. The review calls for institutionalising INFF outcomes through domestic revenue, public finance management, and debt reforms, with blended finance to close gaps.
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic (report link)
Dominican Republic’s VNR takes INFF as a methodological toolkit that strengthens links between planning and budgeting, improves monitoring of development finance and mobilises additional resources from public and private sources, domestic and international. Tools include alignment of the national budget with the SDGs, mapping of official development assistance flows, and Policy Priority Inference to simulate trajectories of key indicators. The country is preparing its first Integrated Financial Strategy with technical support from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A joint box with Seychelles sets out a roadmap for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on building effective frameworks.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia (report link)
Ethiopia’s VNR emphasises it’s Integrated Sustainable Financing Strategy (E-ISFS) which aligns public and private finance with the Ten-Year Development Plan and SDGs, pairs tax and expenditure reforms with capital-market deepening and public-private partnerships, integrates climate finance and sets out governance and monitoring systems. The review also notes an estimated annual gap of roughly 19.1% of gross domestic product and emphasises a shift from design to full execution of the strategy, including sector-level financing plans.
🇬🇲 The Gambia (report link)
In its VNR, the Gambia highlights updates to its Development Finance Assessment in 2024 and the subsequent development of an Integrated National Financing Strategy to coordinate and align all sources of finance with the Recovery-Focused National Development Plan and the SDGs. The review links this work to public finance management reforms, the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and a government commitment, in collaboration with the UNDP to use the framework to underpin the current plan, nationally determined contributions and subsequent plans.
🇬🇭 Ghana (report link)
Ghana’s VNR positions its INFF as the main vehicle to address a large SDG financing gap and to align diverse sources of capital. The review references diagnostics, a financing strategy, monitoring and review and governance. It also highlights the country’s Green Finance Taxonomy to steer investment toward sustainable activities, and mentions digital domestic revenue mobilisation, diaspora investments and green bonds as parts of the toolkit.
🇮🇩 Indonesia (report link)
Indonesia’s review explains that, under the Ministry of National Development Planning, the INFF has been operationalised to link planning with financing. A 2024 ministerial regulation on innovative financing creates mechanisms and an implementation unit that coordinates execution and impact measurement. The review points to the SDGs Financing Hub that connects ministries and investors, and to use of green bonds, SDG bonds, Islamic green sukuk, blue bonds and blended finance, while also acknowledging challenges from siloed institutions, limited transparency of finance data, and insufficient incentives for impactful private investment.
🇱🇸 Lesotho (report link)
Lesotho’s VNR highlights the country’s implementation of the framework since 2022, beginning with a Development Finance Assessment that mapped flows and capacities, followed by an SDG Investor Map identifying opportunities in agriculture, manufacturing, renewable energy, health and financial services, and a near-final Integrated Finance Strategy that sets architecture, monitoring and accountability and measures to mobilise public and private finance. The review also urges operationalisation of the framework and gender-responsive budgeting.
🇳🇬 Nigeria (report link)
Nigeria’s review places the framework at the centre of financing and budget coordination. The Federal Ministry of Finance links the INFF with the Medium-Term Revenue Strategy and the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, co-leading coordination with the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs. Governance arrangements include a National Steering Committee co-chaired by the finance minister and the United Nations Resident Coordinator, and a Core Working Group co-chaired by the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning and the UNDP. The review describes mainstreaming at sub-national level, engagement with legislators and a monitoring and evaluation system within the framework.
🇸🇨 Seychelles (report link)
Seychelles reports that it is implementing the INFF to map financing sources, manage risks and coordinate mobilisation across public and private, domestic and international flows. It highlights SDG budget tagging to improve transparency and align budgets with the National Development Strategy 2024–2028, and notes complementary instruments such as programme-for-results financing and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2024–2028. The review also summarises a joint roadmap with the Dominican Republic on lessons for SIDS.
What are the key findings from these VNRs?
Across 10 reviews, the INFF appears as the bridge from planning to budgeting and actual resource flows.
- Where there is a clear legal or policy basis, implementation moves faster, which is evident for example in Indonesia’s ministerial regulation that created an implementation unit, and Nigeria’s formal high-level steering and core technical groups. These arrangements help convert medium-term plans into coordinated financing strategies that mix public and private instruments and then track what gets financed.
- Innovative financing instruments are used by countries to raise financing for development. Bhutan and Seychelles formalised taxonomies or tagging to steer capital, and Indonesia’s approach spans SDG and green bonds, Islamic green sukuk, blue bonds and blended finance. Countries with large diasporas or private-sector depth emphasise ways to mobilise those flows, while maintaining a focus on public finance management so spending is efficient and equitable.
- Climate alignment is now mainstream inside these financing frameworks. Angola explicitly connects the framework to nationally determined contributions and Article 6 market mechanisms, while Seychelles links tagging and strategy to a long-term pathway for resilience and uses programme-for-results and climate facilities to anchor delivery. This climate-first framing is echoed in several of the other reviews shared.
- Countries are investing in governance that mixes political leadership with technical execution and data. Nigeria formalised co-chairs at minister and United Nations Resident Coordinator level and specified a monitoring and evaluation system inside the framework. These choices reflect a wider push to make the framework not just a plan but an operating system for financing the SDGs.
- The tenor of the ten reviews is shifting from design to delivery. Development Finance Assessments, investor maps and draft strategies are now being used to convene investors, cost pipelines and adjust budgets in-year where tagging shows gaps. The priority for the remainder of the decade is consistent execution: keep widening domestic revenue without undermining growth, deepen capital-market access where feasible, build incentives and data for private investment with real impact and keep national climate and development priorities at the centre of how every currency unit is raised and spent.
