“Science- and evidence-based solutions” were at the heart of this year’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which concluded last week at the United Nations headquarters. This theme allowed the Bahá’í International Community (BIC) to explore how communities around the world are learning to apply ethical qualities, like collective responsibility and a commitment to justice, through processes that are scientific in method and systematic in learning, in efforts to advance sustainable development in their own context.  

“Local communities around the world are learning how scientific capacities, like testing ideas through action, assessing results, identifying patterns, and separating fact from conjecture, are being fostered at the grassroots and assisting residents to apply ethical principles toward the aims of the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Cecilia Schirmeister, Representative of the BIC and head of its delegation to the Forum. 

Sustainable development and a new posture toward ethics

Initiatives related to that theme were the focus of an event the BIC hosted in its office, titled “Applying Ethical Qualities Through Scientific Methods to Advance Sustainable Development: Field Experiences and Insights from Four Regions.”

Leading the event’s panel of speakers, Omna Sreeni-ong, Founder and Managing Director of ENGENDER Consultancy and Co-Chair of the Malaysian CSO SDG Alliance, noted the importance of acknowledging and drawing on the capacity inherent in every population. 

Ms. Sreeni-ong spoke of one initiative in Malaysia, focused on localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that initially encountered customs that excluded women from participating in discussions on community affairs. But when those women, most from an Indigenous background, were the ones to carry forward development tasks related to village needs, all within the context of the initiative, their input became central to discussions among the village chiefs and government officials. 

“This population that had been totally invisible to policymakers suddenly became visible,” Ms. Sreeni-ong said. “Because they themselves co-created their own solutions.”

Exploring similar themes, Kimberley Truin, with the Bahá’í Office of External Affairs of the Netherlands, explained how one Dutch neighborhood had benefitted from growing numbers of residents developing scientific capacities such as reading realities of their social context, assessing the impact of assumptions about human nature on the functioning of society, and identifying shared learning goals to guide development projects. 

“What we’ve seen is that when communities work in this way, building trust, clarifying shared goals, and taking time to reflect and learn together, something begins to shift,” Ms. Truin explained. 

“The neighborhood is no longer just a site where individuals and organizations provide services that others consume. It becomes a space where knowledge is generated—not academic knowledge only, but knowledge that emerges from collective action, grounded in values, shaped by experience, and oriented toward the common good.”

And another member of the panel, Arash Fazli, Head of the Bahá’í Chair for Studies in Development at Devi Ahilya University, India, stressed the need for a change in the development community’s posture toward ethics, if social and ecological challenges are to find lasting solutions. 

“For too long our posture toward ethics has been instrumental. We use ethics pragmatically, when it serves our purpose, and set it aside when it doesn’t,” Mr. Fazli said. “The only way we can ensure that new social structures are just and unified is when we value these principles intrinsically, not just instrumentally. These should become fundamental principles that are non-negotiable. The ends do not justify the means. The means and the ends must be consistent.”

Addressing gender stereotypes 

Another event hosted by the BIC focused on community-driven efforts designed to promote justice for women and girls. 

Titled, “Building Access to Justice and Strengthening the Rule of Law: Exploring General Recommendation 41, SDG 5 and SDG 16,” the event highlighted women-led efforts to address issues ranging from militarism and the international arms trade, to social unrest and gang violence, to mainstreaming gender equality across the range of the SDGs.

Underlying many such challenges, the speakers suggested, are biases against women that, though often deeply ingrained and long-standing, are far from immutable. “While stereotypes are resilient, they can change or be changed,” said speaker Rhoda Reddock, Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

In her opening remarks, BIC Representative Liliane Nkunzimana said, “Unless we can fundamentally change how we think and how we perceive each other—in particular women and girls—the underlying causes of prejudice and discrimination, embedded in the systems and structures of societies, will continue to perpetuate injustice. By examining the impact of gender stereotypes, we can understand the critical importance of transforming mindsets.” 

The High-Level Political Forum takes place annually in New York and reviews progress and gaps related to a selection of the SDGs. This year the Forum focused on SDGs 3 (regarding good health and wellbeing), 5 (gender equality), 8 (decent work and economic growth), 14 (life below water), and 17 (partnerships for the goals).