By establishing 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s 2030 Agenda proposes that States work collectively towards a development model that articulates care for people, protection of the planet, economic prosperity, promotion of peace, and the strengthening of partnerships, promising to “leave no one behind.” The report published in 2022 by the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, E. Tendayi Achiume, demonstrates that this promise encounters significant limitations when the issue of race appears only on the margins of the debate. The Agenda acknowledges inequalities but avoids naming what sustains them: race, structural racism, and the legacies of colonialism (Achiume, 2022).
This tension between discourse and reality becomes particularly visible when we observe the language and indicators of the SDGs. Although the document acknowledges the need to reduce inequalities, especially through SDG 10, its indicators treat these disparities in a largely aggregated way, prioritizing economic or distributive metrics, without consistently incorporating racial or ethnic breakdowns. Inequality thus appears as a neutral phenomenon, detached from the historical structures that produce it. In this context, structural racism often remains invisible in the monitoring instruments of the Agenda. (ONU, 2018).
Without specific indicators and data that allow for the observation of historically constructed inequalities, the commitment to equality remains, according to the report, in discourse and not in practice. Achiume highlights that this omission is not technical, but political, indicating that the UN still operates under the idea of racial neutrality, which tends to make global power hierarchies invisible. This diagnosis is echoed by Patricia Hill Collins, who demonstrates how discourses of objectivity and universality often reinforce dominant perspectives, presenting as neutral views aligned with the epistemologies of the Global North. Thus, the 2030 Agenda formulates broad goals, but devoid of the concrete historical conditions that structure development. (Collins, 2000).
It is in this context that the Brazilian proposal to create SDG 18, Ethnic-Racial Equality, gains centrality. Announced by the Brazilian government in the context of the 78th United Nations General Assembly, SDG 18 arises from the recognition that, halfway through the implementation period of the Agenda, the reduction of inequalities is progressing insufficiently. The proposal stems from the recognition that addressing racial inequalities requires indicators capable of making visible historically produced inequalities that are frequently absent from the monitoring instruments of the 2030 Agenda.
In this sense, the proposal directly engages with the diagnosis presented by Achiume. While the 2030 Agenda tends to treat inequality as a neutral phenomenon, SDG 18 proposes making visible the racial hierarchies that structure global development. More than creating an isolated objective, the Brazilian initiative suggests an interpretative lens capable of complementing existing SDGs, allowing goals related to poverty, education, work, or the reduction of inequalities to be analyzed also from their racial dimensions (ODS 18 – Igualdade Étnico-Racial).
The reintegration of the National Commission for the Sustainable Development Goals (CNODS), with equal participation between government and civil society, and the creation of the Thematic Chamber for SDG 18, coordinated by the Ministry of Racial Equality, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, and the Executive Secretariat of the CNODS, represent an important institutional advance. In this sense, the proposal also highlights how international legal language can be internalized domestically to guide public policies aimed at promoting racial equality (Decreto no 11.704/CNODS). The initiative recognizes that sustainable development requires confronting racism as a structural issue, and not merely as a cross-cutting theme.
Internationally, however, SDG 18 still has a proactive character. The initiative was presented by Brazil as a contribution to the global debate on sustainable development and has been discussed in diplomatic spaces and international forums, but has not yet been formally incorporated into the official set of Sustainable Development Goals. (Silva, 2023). This scenario highlights both the limitations and the relevance of the proposal, by broadening the debate on the need to recognize racism as a structural dimension of development.
The Brazilian movement is inspired by voluntary experiences in countries like India and Costa Rica, which have also established additional SDGs to address identified gaps. By aligning the 2030 Agenda with the Achiume report, SDG 18 demonstrates an unavoidable need. Diagnosis: there is no sustainable development without racial justice. The promise of “leaving no one behind” will be fulfilled when the international system recognizes who has been historically “left behind” and through which structures. The Brazilian SDG 18 points to a possible path of transformation, a global agenda that integrates perspectives produced by racialized people, inaugurating a horizon of development truly committed to racial equality and global justice.
References
ACHIUME, E. Tendayi. Relatório do Relator Especial sobre as formas contemporâneas de racismo, discriminação racial, xenofobia e intolerância correlata. Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas, A/77/328, 2022.
BRASIL. Presidência da República. Discurso do Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva na abertura da 78ª Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas. 2023. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/planalto/pt-br/acompanhe-o-planalto/discursos-e-pronunciamentos/2023/discurso-do-presidente-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva-na-abertura-da-78a-assembleia-da-onu Acesso em: 14 de mar de 2026.
BRASIL. Decreto nº 11.704, de 20 de dezembro de 2023. Institui a Comissão Nacional para os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável – CNODS. Disponível em: D11704 Acesso em: 14 de mar de 2026.
BRASIL. Comissão Nacional dos ODS (CNODS). Resolução nº 2/2023. Cria a Câmara Temática do ODS 18 – Igualdade Étnico-Racial. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/secretariageral/pt-br/cnods/resolucoes/Resolucao2ODS18IgualdadeEtnicoRacial.pdf . Acesso em: 14 de mar de 2026.
COLLINS, Patricia Hill. Pensamento Feminista Negro: Conhecimento, Consciência e a Política do Empoderamento. 2ª ed. Nova York: Routledge, 2000.
ODS 10 – Organização das Nações Unidas. Agenda 2030 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Disponível em: https://brasil.un.org/pt-br/sdgs. Acesso em: 14 de mar de 2026.
ODS 18 – Igualdade Étnico-racial – Ministério Da Igualdade Racial. 2023. Disponível em: ODS 18 – Igualdade Étnico-Racial — Ministério da Igualdade Racial. Acesso em: 14 de mar de 2026.
ONU – Organização das Nações Unidas. Transformando nosso mundo: a Agenda 2030 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável. 2015. Disponível em: https://brasil.un.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/agenda2030-pt-br.pdf Acesso em: 14 de mar de 2026.
