Reflexive Governance for UN SDG Implementation: Assessing National Capacities in Bulgaria and Romania

Midterm evaluations of efforts by UN Heads of State and Government to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reveal that early ambitions have mostly fallen short, exposing significant governance gaps. Applying the SDGs’ core principles places new demands on national policy and scientific systems, underscoring the need to strengthen domestic capacities. This paper rests on the premise that addressing the SDGs’ distinctive problem characteristics requires moving beyond rational decision-making and adopting reflexive governance approaches. Drawing on insights from environmental politics and sustainability governance, this paper outlines some key implications for the necessary human and institutional capacities, focusing on the competencies and skills of key actors, as well as the conditions that enable the generation and use of relevant knowledge within the 2030 Agenda’s political framework. The empirical analysis uses qualitative data from expert interviews and document analysis to examine how Bulgaria and Romania responded to the global agenda and developed domestic capacities for SDG implementation between 2015 and 2024. The findings are discussed against the con-ceptual considerations to inform national and international capacity building measures. Future research could focus on cross-country comparisons to explain SDG implementation variations within the EU’s Eastern enlargement and determine how capacity-building processes can be more effectively designed.