Narrating and Governing Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia's Voluntary National Reviews 2017–2025

Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) bring global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting expectations into nationally situated reporting practices. This study examines Indonesia's complete VNRs (2017, 2019, 2021, 2025) using longitudinal qualitative document analysis that combines reporting‐structure analysis, narrative analysis and indicator‐use mapping. The findings show, first, that the goals receiving in‐depth treatment correspond exactly to the High‐Level Political Forum (HLPF) review priorities of each cycle, in all 27 goal‐cycle combinations examined and without deviation in either direction, while national mediation is more visible in reporting depth, target and indicator emphasis, interlinkages and narrative organisation. Second, the evidence supports selective narrative‐indicator coherence rather than systematic mismatch; narratives contextualise favourable and unfavourable indicators within themes of progress, crisis, challenge and policy response. The study conceptualises the VNR as an epistemic interface that mediates global reporting structures and national development knowledge, offering the concept as an analytical proposition for examination in other national VNR contexts. It presents a bounded knowledge‐governance account of how SDG progress becomes reportable in Indonesia's VNRs.