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.