Identifying, assessing, protecting, developing and creating Social Capital

It was 63 years ago, exactly on April 29th 1954, when India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and China’s first premier, Zhou Enlai, signed a treaty that has been since recommended as the Panchsheel Treaty. It contained a few mutual and common rules that are called the five principles of peaceful coexistence. At the time the Charter of the United Nations (link to the original version)  that is supposed to containing the same principles had become effective for nine years yet. But within this period the American and French wars in Korea and Vietnam questioned the UN Charter.

Still agreeing on peaceful co-existence: China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi (AP photo from Hindustantimes)

So when the Chinese President Xi Jinping and his colleague Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in September 2017 on the occasion of the BRICS meeting in China’s Xiamen, remembering the Panchsheel Treaty was a rare sample of successful bilateral agreements that have never been broken or put in question.
And these are the five principles:

1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
2. Mutual non-aggression.
3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
4. Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit.
5. Peaceful co-existence
   

   Understanding the paradox of rules: Lao-Tzu

   While other international agreements, beside the UN Charter from 1945 e.g. the Helsinki Act from 1975 or the Minsk Protocol from 2015 failed to bringing enduring peace, the five principles appear astonishing highly topical. The Basel Institute of Commons and Economics therefore started to adopt them as a base for other bilateral agreements on peace and reconciliation.
   In a broadcast from May 1954 Nehru said: ‚If these principles were recognized in the mutual relations of all countries, then indeed there would hardly be any conflict and certainly no war.‘ In any case they shift the issue of peace from entirely complicated rules that cause endless violations to a couple of clear basic rules.
   It was the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.) who discovered the paradox of law and rules long before Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Categorical Imperative when he considered:
   The more rules and regulations,
   The more thieves and robbers.
   Today’s peacemakers may being inspired by such thoughts.

Organized by the UN SDG Lab on September 12th 2017, several international organizations and countries were invited to attend a presentation and discussion of the World Social Capital Monitor, the innovative set of indicators for the SDG, provided by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics at the Palais des Nations of the UNOG. Among the contributors was Jos Verbeek, representant of the World Bank in Geneva, who introduced the entire history of the Social Capital Initiative of the Worldbank since 1992 yet. You can read Verbeek’s input to the social dimension of the SDG here: http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/forgotten-dimension-sdg-indicators-social-capital

H.E. Dr. Ibrahim Khraishi, Ambassador of the State of Palestine to the United Nations (right) with Christian Lonnqvist (left) and Alexander Dill (midst) at the Embassy of Palestine

Across the event the Basel Institute could hold separate meetings with ten UN missions in order to following the motto of the SDG which is to leaving noone behind.
Since the expulsion of hundreds of thousands Palestinians in 1948, the so called Nakba, the occupied territories more than many countries only survived due to the solidarity, helpfulness and friendliness across their citizens and friends.
Palestine is literally built on Social Capital.
Of course this Social Capital can now being the asset to finally achieving peace and reconciliation.
Especially while experts do not expect less Social Capital on the other side of the wall that divides this beautiful region of Olive and Orange trees, herbs and calm atriums, bridging Social Capital will help to making the first steps.
The commitment of the World Social Capital Monitor to Goal No. 16 – which is peace – includes to starting where peace is needed most.

Salām – and hopefully as well Shalom – to all people in the Middle East!

While doing the first open access survey in history, the World Social Capital Monitor, finding partners in all countries creates amazing and inspiring stories. The most recent one is the one of Rachel Boadu, 20, from the town of Kumasi in Ghana where she studies Social Sciences at the University of Ghana. Only a week ago Rachel (who we contacted through Researchgate)  started to spreading our questionnaire among young people across Ghana via Smartphone.
She was that successful that after three days she had several hundreds of respondents from 50 Ghanaian cities and more than fifty qualitative statements.
So we decided to creating the fastest Social Capital Report ever being published today. Why that? If we are capable to achieving results that quick we have to share and spread them right now.
Social sciences are not for the drawers only.
So you can have a look at the amazing Social Capital of Ghana with a 837kb PDF file now.
Congrats Rachel to your great study and the passion and speed you’re spreading it!

Three Nobel laureates, Elinor Ostrom, Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen contributed to the World Bank’s Social Capital Initative in 1999. Unfortunately the group has been „disbanded“ – that’s how Michael Woolcock, the head of the initiative, expressed it in an email to Alexander Dill of the Basel Institute in November 2015. Recently the World Bank on the occasion of the World Social Capital Monitor recovered the issue. In their report to the European Commission (p. 186) Stiglitz and Sen wrote 2009: „Bridging social capital is the most important under-measured form of social connections for many outcomes.“ But Joseph Stiglitz as well wrote: „Social capital is tacit knowledge“.

So why did it not happen? Why are so many organizations and Statistical Offices not interested in measuring and considering Social Capital?

Alexander Dill at South Asian Dean’s Conference in Phnom Penh 2016

The major reason is the reaction policy makers and officials have on what they suppose to being academic in any meaning: Let’s leave this to specialists and report in three years again.
So we try to explaining the definition, the meaning, the use and the outcome of Social Capital such as:

• Violent conflicts can only be resolved by trust, helpfulness and friendliness.
• Public goods such as security, health, education and climate care can only be funded if the citizens support them by taxes, contributions and voluntarism.
• Sovereign debt can only be repaid by the willingness of citizens to accept austerity measures and an asset levy. For both trust and solidarity are required.
• Affluence grows by people trusting and helping each other. Otherwise the transaction costs will be too high and will prohibit economical relations.

How can bridging Social Capital being measured then?
The only eight questions of the Social Capital Assessment are available in several languages on www.trustyourplace, the survey portal of the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics. We offer a social media application to identify, to enhance, to protect and to recover core assets of Social Capital.
The participation is anonymous and we neither require registration nor do we collect any socio-demographic data such as on political, ethnic or religious bonding. Why?
Because in most of the conflict regions they are the reason of the conflict.

Issues cutting across

Social Capital cuts across with various issues

Social Capital in our definition is the amount of core interpersonal perceptions among a community. In our Social Capital Assessment we are now able to quantify and to compare the Social Capital of around 150  countries today.
Of course Social Capital cuts across with a bundle of issues such as social cohesion, voluntarism, public goods and civil society.

The practical impact of Social Capital on society

While studying the literature on Social Capital you can easily get the impression that discussing ‚The concepts of Social Capital‘ is a theoretical egghead issue only. In the following interview Professor Pahlaj Moolio from the Pannasastra University of Cambodia gives examples for where Social Capital is created and required: first in the family, then in rural development, banking and tourism. The example of the newborn child he gives, sounds convincing: the baby brings friendliness as a gift into the family. This friendliness causes and inspires trust, solidarity and helpfulness. So the development of the child to becoming a valuable member of the community is built on non-material assets beyond GDP and GNP:

If we you want to learn more on Social Capital, it’s history and contributors, our recent introduction „Why Social Capital 2016?“ might be an easy way to access. The major references are linked in the article so that you can make your own picture of the major sources.