United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Algorithms in Government

As part of the ongoing Democracy Console project, I recently implemented Consul Democracy on the NTARI database. Among the first things I noticed is its integration of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as overarching categories for community initiatives.

The UN established seventeen SDGs:

1. No poverty

2. Zero hunger

3. Good health and well-being

4. Quality education

5. Gender equality

6. Clean water and sanitation

7. Affordable and clean energy

8. Decent work and economic growth

9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure

10. Reduced inequalities

11. Sustainable cities and communities

12. Responsible consumption and production

13. Climate action

14. Life below water

15. Life on land

16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

17. Partnerships for the goals

These goals were drafted and adopted by all 193 UN member states in 2015.

When applied to systems like Consul Democracy, SDGs represent general categories relevant to communities at large. The original users of this software—Madrid's diverse metropolitan population of 3.2 million—reside in the center of Western Europe's Iberian Peninsula and generally align with broader European commitments to collective development.

What makes Consul Democracy particularly effective is its structured categorization system. Unlike Facebook, where content exists in an open, algorithmically-sorted environment optimized for engagement rather than outcomes, Consul Democracy implements a civic architecture that shapes participation. Each post, proposal, or discussion is deliberately categorized within frameworks like the SDGs, guiding citizens to consider their ideas within established community priorities.

This architectural difference significantly impacts how communities function. While Facebook users primarily participate as individuals expressing personal views in an environment that often leads to information overload, Consul Democracy participants engage primarily as citizens working toward shared goals. The platform's categorization helps filter signal from noise, maintains clearer connections to outcomes, and facilitates more effective aggregation of community knowledge.

SDGs provided a framework that helped Europeans adopt systems like Consul Democracy—software that enables millions of citizens to participate more effectively in governance. While many in the US promote narratives about American exceptionalism in democratic practice, Spain represents a different democratic model: a parliamentary monarchy where King Felipe VI serves as head of state while a prime minister administers systems for nationwide collective decision-making.

Regardless of form, the purpose of government is to facilitate collective intelligence—enabling many to act as one. The UN's adoption of SDGs represented a step toward global collaborative planetary development. If all 193 member nations maintained commitment to these goals for the next 500 years, several objectives would likely be achieved:

• Zero hunger

• Zero poverty

• Quality education

• Clean water and sanitation

• Affordable and clean energy

• Sustainable communities and cities

• Responsible consumption and production

• Partnerships for the goals

The remaining nine goals would then become matters of maintenance. It has taken humanity approximately 425 years of industrial development to reach a point where we should consider implementing global frameworks for cultivating life among our species and planetary systems. With internet connectivity, we can optimize our terrestrial collaborative development and begin exploring methods for expanding to the moon.

The Governance of Priorities in Collective Intelligence Systems

Any organization adopting a collective intelligence system must establish priorities that govern user interactions. While Consul Democracy may not strictly require the declaration of an SDG for each proposal, the mere presence of these categories creates a powerful frame that shapes participation and prevents users from unintentionally introducing noise.

These principles can be adapted to organizations of all sizes:

In schools, a parent-teacher association might organize initiatives around priorities like "Academic Excellence," "Student Wellbeing," and "Inclusive Community." When proposing a new after-school program, parents would indicate which priority it serves, connecting their idea to broader educational needs and preventing meetings from being dominated by disconnected individual grievances.

Homeowners' associations could structure community forums around priorities like "Property Value Preservation," "Environmental Stewardship," and "Neighbor Connections." When discussing issues from landscaping to security, each conversation remains anchored to shared priorities rather than devolving into contests between competing personal preferences.

Nonprofits perhaps demonstrate the clearest benefit of priority-governed interactions. An environmental organization might categorize activities as "Habitat Protection," "Climate Advocacy," or "Community Education." By framing proposals within these categories, the organization maintains alignment between daily activities and its core purpose, preventing mission drift.

Pre-established categories provide three crucial benefits: they create a shared vocabulary for community priorities, help filter proposals through lenses of community values, and turn participation into a learning process. As members engage with these structures over time, they internalize the community's priorities and develop more nuanced thinking about how different priorities interact.

The effectiveness of digital democracy depends not just on giving everyone a voice, but on thoughtfully structuring how those voices come together. As we scale these systems to larger contexts, this interplay between established priorities and emerging collective intelligence becomes increasingly important. The experience with Consul Democracy suggests that well-designed categorical structures don't limit participation—they enhance it by providing the scaffolding needed for meaningful collective action.