Implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by leaving no one behind

Social capital truly comes to life through comparison: between cities, towns, and countries. Or by comparing time series within a single location. The latter requires a great deal of time, patience, great partners, and money.
That’s why we’re all the more proud to present two recent time series to you here. The scale is between 10 (high) and 1 (low).

The Paulistas, thanks to Professor Celso Ribero Campos, rate their local social capital since 2018 yet. The progress they made between 2020 and 2026 is remarkable: growth in every single indicator! They enjoy taxes even one point more. For a region with 55 million inhabitants and half of Brazil’s GDP this is outstanding. We can only congratulate and hope to keep this level in 2027.

With our great partner Professor Farooq Nadim from Herat University we assess social capital in Afghanistan since ten years now. Despite the fact of an overrepresentation of Herat, the table shows that social capital can decline – and recover. One point loss in helpfulness, friendliness and hospitality is a call to consider and rebuild these assets! Unfortunately, most donors have retired from Afghanistan – which doesn’t explain why they even reject to read these results.

Since all UN member states adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, countries have been voluntarily submitting progress reports. Eleven years later, wealthy OECD member states top the rankings and will do so by 2030. There is a simple reason for this: almost all SDG indicators depend on economic performance. The 44 countries classified by UNCTAD as Least Developed Countries are poor.

H.E. Ambassador of the African Union to the UN, Mohamed Edrees, with Alexander Dill

But can we really compare the average per capita income of countries that can print money at will—such as most OECD nations, including the U.S., Japan, and the EU—with that of countries whose people depend on local agriculture, remittances of migrants and the export of raw materials? Countries that cannot participate in the global capital markets?

Ambassador of the OIC to the UN, H.E. Hameed Opeloyeru, with Alexander Dill

This question has been raised for decades under the banner of “Beyond GDP“, for which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has launched an initiative.
Alexander Dill of the Basel Institute of Commons visited the UN ambassadors of two organizations in New York during the High-Level Political Forum on the SDGs; both organizations represent the majority of countries classified as LDCs: The African Union (55 members), represented by Ambassador Mohamed Edrees, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, 57 members), represented by its Ambassador, Hameed Opeloyeru.

Dill presented the ambassadors with new inclusive indicators that are already being tested in 54 African countries, as well as in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. On a scale from 10 (high) to 1 (low), these indicators measure what is known as social capital—non-material assets that even poor communities have developed, such as a willingness to help, friendliness, and hospitality.

The goal is also to recognize non-material values, as the development of a just economy depends on them. Many European countries, such as Switzerland, were once very poor and were only able to develop the resources that make them wealthy today through their social capital.

Economist Elinor Ostrom, whose research led to the founding of the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics in 2010, demonstrated that high levels of social capital promote economic development. She showed, for example, that water prices in Nepal were lower in areas where more cooperatives were involved in water supply.

In the 1970s, the World Bank estimated that social capital accounted for 85 percent of China’s economic output.
The Basel Institute of Commons and Economics now aims to launch an African Social Capital Monitor, which, for the first time, will also be available in native African languages. (see chart)

The African Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation might be the first to implement the results of decades of research on the impact of non-material assets.

At the HLPF on SDGs in New York, our ‚Brief Guide to Confidence-Building Measures 2026‘ appeared. We thought on how to simplify proposals for confidence-building measures and make them comprehensive at a first glance. This one of the first contributions of ChatGPT technology used to peace and reconciliation. Credits: Nicolas Dill and Chat GPT.

When the Westphalian district of Etteln in the municipality of Borchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, won the 2024 Smart City Contest, it received widespread coverage in the German media.
In addition to laying fiber optic cables, Etteln also offers numerous digital services, such as a digital marketplace for ideas, projects, and services. The German version of the World Social Capital Monitor was recently presented there: https://crossiety.app/news_cards/1391211
Within just three days, 65 of the 850 residents registered in the app took part and rated their non-material social goods such as helpfulness, friendliness, and willingness to contribute to the community through taxes and local investments.

Ratings of Etteln on a scale of 10 (high) to 1 (low)

By German standards, these are very high values for what is therefore referred to as “social capital.” While the willingness to pay taxes is usually the highest value in Germany (question 4), helpfulness (8.3 points) and friendliness (8.2 points) are at the top of the list in Etteln.

This refutes classic prejudices about digitalization, such as that it promotes loneliness and destroys neighbourhoods. Or, conversely, where high social capital already exists, it is not threatened by digitalization. Local social media apps are therefore a meaningful contribution and expression of local social capital in any case.

As in other social media apps, some participants in Etteln tried to negatively influence the good rating by giving a low score ten times.

Such ratings are not taken into account in the evaluation. However, there was also a reason for this: “Newcomers have no chance of being integrated into this place! But the locals don’t want to admit it! Very stubborn. Very unfortunate.” This was a local say.

The globally unique opportunity to submit qualitative statements on trustyouplace.com means that even critical individual voices can be heard and taken into account. This form of social inclusion distinguishes the monitor from surveys in which only agreement or disagreement with prepared statements is asked for.

The United Nations can no longer fulfill its task of monitoring compliance with the UN Charter worldwide. Members of the Security Council openly reject the Charter and set their own rules. Although a large majority of the 193 UN members adhere to the Charter, including the two most populous countries on earth, China and India, the UN can neither prevent nor end wars. Joint successes such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the ban on CFCs are urgently needed. In the video presented here, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute of Columbia University (USA) speaks at the Security Council of the United Nations.

We published 25+ studies and Policy Briefs in the UN: https://commons.ch/un-consultations. We delivered practical multilateral solutions such as the Mediterranean Peace Railway from Egypt to Syria crossing Gaza, Israel, Lebanon and the West-Bank. We started to offer citizens to score their shared and common social goods in all regions of conflict in 53 languages by open access on any cell-phone.

We will remain committed to the UN Goals and multilateralism as well when States cut the UN Budgets.

What is the difference between the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development (1995), the Millennium Goals (2000), the Sustainable Development Goals (2015) and the UN Charter from 1945?
If we take the trouble to read all four declarations as a synopsis, we may come to the conclusion: nothing has changed in terms of the general goals such as social justice, preservation of natural resources and peaceful coexistence.

However, this means that the demands will be the same for the second World Summit for Social Development in Doha from November 4 to 6, 2025. More development aid. More cheap loans for Least Developed Countries. More commitment from the private sector. Better and fairer governance.

Same procedure or progress?

The positions in Doha are therefore to be expected. Poorer countries will ask richer countries for more support. The organizations responsible for development aid will warn against cuts. The main donors will proudly point to their successes.
So what could be different in Doha? Are there innovative approaches that are capable of promoting social development, at least in the LDCs, without a utopian redistribution of funds? Social engineering maybe?

As a scientific think tank, the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics has a duty to develop and test practicable and affordable forms of social engineering.
With the World Social Capital Monitor, the Institute now reaches around 2000 cities in 140 countries (including the 44 LDCs) and 53 languages. You can test this open evaluation of social goods, which are at the heart of all social development, yourself here without registering anonymous on any Mobile:

https://trustyourplace.com/?lang=en

Identified the economic value of Social Capital: Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012).

Willingness to finance public goods as an indicator?

The Basel Institute was surprised to find that the willingness to contribute to the financing of public goods through taxes is also very high in LDCs, as is the willingness to invest in local cooperatives and SMEs.
Ultimately, the most stable and strongest societies are based on social inclusion and solidarity. These reduce the transaction costs for loans and investments, for poverty reduction and security.
Shared social values have been identified for decades as so-called social capital. The social researcher Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) was even awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics for this.
For Doha, the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics will offer to present the social assets of all countries on the basis of the World Social Capital Monitor in order to create a basis for
decentralized and small-scale financing of communities in which national, international and regional funds can invest and which activate local resources.
Social capital could thus become a pioneering form of social engineering, in which even poor communities can assess and activate their local values such as helpfulness, friendliness and hospitality, completely without financial resources.
This would be a new impetus for the great declarations of the international community that does not require political and economic upheaval because each individual citizen can activate their social capital.

Discussing public opportunity costs with administrators always works in the same way: you get ten minutes to explain what opportunity costs are. Then they explain to you, that these are no opportunity costs at all but measures to maintain employment.

Is this the end of identifying and diminishing public opportunity costs for mistrust?

Since the escalation of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the Gaza war, the costs for the military and sanctions have exploded. The clients describe them as “investments” in security and peace. The European Union, which for decades stood for economic success through peace, wants to take on an unimaginable 800 billion euros in debt. What for?

First of all, all arms expenditure in the Cold War between 1945 and 1990 was a total economic loss for all involved. Aircraft carriers, fighter planes, submarines, nuclear missiles.

Around three trillion dollars in military and sanctions  were invested against the UN sustainability goals in 2022. (see chart)

The total ODA in the same year was at $ 178.9 billion.

These comparisons are rarely published. They are not even included in the UN’s annual report on financing for development.
Military spending is not an investment. Education and health serve to maintain the population’s working capacity and provide for their old age. Investments in environmental protection maintain water supply and nutrition. Military spending serves what?
There is no conflict that cannot be resolved diplomatically and economically.

It would therefore suffice to put military spending to the test as a pure opportunity cost: Perhaps the potential enemy might prefer prosperity and effective technologies? Perhaps he needs well-educated young people for the development of his country? Customers for its products? Tourists? Energy?
He can have it all – if he is prepared to regard trust as a business model and mistrust as a cost factor.
We will support him in this.

As every year, there will be thousands of calls for peace at the end of this year. Depending on your point of view, peace then consists of submission to the victorious power, the conclusion of internationally guaranteed agreements or the freezing of an insoluble conflict.

However, if we look at centuries-old conflicts in which millions of people have died and which have not broken out again since the Second World War, peace there is based on something completely different: reconciliation.

The Germans have reconciled with the French, Belgians, Dutch, Poles, Czechs and Danes and abolished the borders. The Japanese are now on peaceful terms with the Chinese, the Koreans and other peoples they once cruelly enslaved. The Baltic states, whose change of alliances had led to millions of deaths, now live peacefully between Königsberg and Leningrad – to the surprise of many who thought there was a threat of war between the Baltic states and Russia in 2022,

It is therefore not absurd to prophesise: Peace in Gaza and the Middle East will only come through reconciliation. We therefore published a proposal for a Peace Railway connecting Alexandria in Egypt with Gaza, Haifa, Beirut and Latakia. And the brothers and sisters in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine will come together once Minsk,  Kyiv and Moscow are connected by train again.

No military, no agreement can create reconciliation.

Only the people.

Only six South-South organizations are registered as observers at the UN in New York. On 28 October 2024, a UN event on financing for development took place in New York, which was supposed to attract all those interested in South-South cooperation. In fact, only the UN missions of Burundi and Nepal were represented among 40 speakers.

From left to right: UN Ambassador Hameed Opeloyeru from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Alexander Dill, Director of the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics, Amina Kader, Adviser at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation

The Basel Institute of Commons and Economics, holding a Side Event, invited the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, with its 57 members the biggest South-South organization today.

The almost 500 participants were able to hear from the IMF, the World Bank, Oxfam, the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Bill Gates Foundations as well as from a group called ‘Global Investors for Sustainable Development’ (GISD) about how development should be financed: through ODA, Philanthropy and credits to those who meet the agenda of the donors.

This creates a problem: the total annual expenditure of ODA, the World Bank, the IMF, and development banks report at around 300 billion Dollars per year, which is less than half the gross national product of the German state of Bavaria with 12 million inhabitants.

The presentation by the UN Ambassador of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Mr Hameed Opeloyeru, whose quote forms the headline of this article, is therefore all the more valuable.

While all speakers failed to point out the waste of state resources on conflicts, Ambassador Opeloyeru reclaimed to: ‘freeing up resources hitherto spent on national and inter-state conflicts‘. As many as 21 of the 45 countries characterized by the UN as least developed are members of the OIC.

Opeloyeru: ‘It is a truism that the enormous resources spent on military arsenals and waging regional wars have succeeded in crowding out investments for sustainable development’s support.’

As Opeloyeru illustrated with figures from the OIC’s research institute SESRIC in Ankara, the OIC countries represent 14.9 percent of the world’s gross national product and 15.2 percent of global direct investment. With a total sovereign debt of 2.064 trillion Dollars, the 57 countries have less debt than France.

In the end, Opeloyeru promises a ‘peace dividend’ if states, IGOs, and the UN were to invest 500 billion Dollars annually in the UN sustainability goals.

This would only be 16.6 percent of the 3 billion Dollar opportunity cost for mistrust annually estimated by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics in their study on the opportunity cost of conflicts at the same event.

You can download the presentation of Ambassador Mr. Opeloreyu here.

So what are the strategies to diminish these costs?

According to Opeloyeru, much more funds have to be allocated to Peacebuilding.

This requires a mind-shift, as several participants of the event reclaimed.

Ambassador Opeloyeru came up with a call to think about the roots of conflicts:

„Conflict results from intolerance to differences“

With the invitation of Ambassador Opeloyeru, the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics has picked up this call.

If one accuses the violation of human rights, one should be able to define quite precisely what human rights are. This is true for all charges, but also for the defense against the charges. This would not be a problem if the prosecution and defense in human rights matters were to land on the table of an independent world judge whose ruling would be valid in all 193 countries.

Unfortunately, there is no such judge. Prosecutors and defendants are therefore on their own and try to bring charges to a vote by forming coalitions and deciding on them with as large a majority as possible.

Can you imagine that the main donor countries to the UN could vote against the human right to peace? Not really. But the subtle struggle for the appropriate use of the term human rights is played out in every vote.

And this is how the human right to peace was voted on December 19, 2016:

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/855187

Why should neutral Austria vote against such a right? Even Switzerland abstained from voting, while the People’s Republic of China had no problem with this new human right.

Well, countries that want to wage wars of aggression and overthrow governments in other countries will also declare regime change to be a matter of human rights. Or they will declare war itself to be a peace measure that would save human lives.

In this respect, the Human Rights Council in Geneva reflects the arbitrariness of identity-forming self-images.

It is therefore of no use for language analysts to lament the lack of a definition of human rights.

Instead, in preparation for the 57th session of the HRC, we took a detour, a bypass: without even mentioning the term human rights, we proposed a multilateral confidence-building measure.

This consists of an open access survey in 53 languages https://trustyourplace.com/, in which virtues such as friendliness, helpfulness and hospitality can be rated locally; virtues that are not even questioned among the wildest warrior hordes.

And not even by the members of those coalitions in the UN Human Rights Council who regard it as a permanent tribunal without judge or judgement.

The survey can be completed here in two minutes and, according to the US science magazine Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28230-x, is one of the top ten UN partnerships worldwide in the implementation of Agenda 2030, which was unanimously adopted by all states in 2015.

My thanks go to the Delegations of the People’s Republic of China and South Africa that got me the badge to visit the Palais des Nations (see image).