{"id":1257,"date":"2025-11-13T14:32:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/2025\/11\/the-world-social-summit-in-doha-time-to-act\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T13:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T13:56:40","slug":"the-world-social-summit-in-doha-time-to-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/2025\/11\/the-world-social-summit-in-doha-time-to-act\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Social Summit in Doha: Time to Act"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DOHA, Nov 12 2025 (IPS) <\/strong>- Qatar hosted the Second World Summit for Social Development<\/a> from 4\u20136 November. According to the United Nations, more than 40 Heads of State and Government, 230 ministers and senior officials, and nearly 14,000 attendees took part. Beyond plenaries and roundtables, more than 250 \u201csolution sessions\u201d identified practical ways to advance universal rights to food, housing, decent work, social protection or social security, education, health, care systems and other public services, international labor standards, and the fight against poverty and inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these difficult times for multilateralism, the summit delivered a global agreement, the Doha Political Declaration<\/a>, that many feared would not materialize. The UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres called the text a \u201cbooster shot for development,\u201d urging leaders to deliver a \u201cpeople\u2019s plan\u201d that tackles inequality, creates decent work and rebuilds social trust.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Isabel Ortiz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The summit inevitably invited comparison with the 1995 World Social Summit in Copenhagen, a genuinely visionary summit that set the bar high with 117 Heads of State and Government. Thirty years on, the Doha Declaration is largely a recommitment to earlier agreements. Its\u00a0first drafts<\/a>\u00a0lacked vision and, while significantly improved, the text remains uninspiring. The drop in top-level attendance\u2014from 117 to just over 40\u2014was widely noted in the corridors of the Doha Convention Center. This absence, especially from high-income countries, raises questions about shared responsibility for the Doha consensus and for the universal\u00a0Sustainable Development Goals<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, veteran voices urged pragmatism. Both the Copenhagen Declaration<\/a> and Doha\u2019s recommitment are workable texts to advance social justice. While not the ideal many hoped for, the Doha outcome addresses the key issues\u2014and, above all, constitutes an international consensus adopted by all countries amid a crisis of multilateralism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juan Somav\u00eda, former UN-Under Secretary General and a driving force behind the 1995 Summit, welcomed the Doha\u2019s Declaration as a meaningful foundation to move the agenda forward. Roberto Bissio, coordinator of Social Watch and a lead participant in Copenhagen, added \u201cLet\u2019s revive hope in these turbulent times\u2026 Now in Doha our governments are renewing their pledges of three decades ago, and adding new commitments that we welcome, to reduce inequalities, to promote care and to ensure universal social protection, which is a Human Right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Somavia, Bissio and many UN and civil society leaders in Doha, also stressed the distance between pledges and delivery. The pressure mounted through the week. At the closing, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said that the message from unions, civil society and youth was unequivocal: people expect results, not rhetoric. \u201cThe outcomes of this Summit provide a strong foundation,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat matters most now is implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The test now is whether governments will translate the Doha declaration into action: budgets, laws and programs that reach people. Magdalena Sepulveda, Director of UNRISD, called for bold political action: \u201cWhat we need now is that states are going to take the political will to implement the Doha Declaration in a swift manner with bold measures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trend, however, is moving the other way, as many governments adopt austerity cuts and have limited funding for social development. More than 6.7 billion people or 85% of the world\u2019s population suffer austerity<\/a>, and 84% of countries have cut investment<\/a> in education, health and social protection, fueling protests<\/a> and social conflict. \u201cThe concept of the welfare state is being eroded before our eyes in the face of an ideological commitment to austerity and a shrinking state\u201d said Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of Oxfam International. \u201cA wave of youth-led Gen Z protests is sweeping the world. A recurring slogan during the recent protests in Morocco was \u2018We want hospitals, not stadiums<\/em>\u2019\u2026 Public services are being dismantled while wealth is hoarded at the top. The social contract will not survive this neglect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that governments do have ways to finance the Doha commitments. Austerity is not inevitable; there are alternatives. There are at least nine financing options for social development<\/a>: raise progressive taxes (such as on corporate profits, finance, high wealth, property, and digital services); curb illicit financial flows; reduce or restructure debt; increase employers contributions to social security and formalize employment; reallocate spending away from high-cost, low-impact items such as defense; use fiscal and foreign-exchange reserves; increase aid and transfers; adopt more flexible macroeconomic frameworks; and approve new allocations of Special Drawing Rights. In a world awash with money yet marked by stark inequality, finding the funds is a matter of political will. In short: austerity is a choice, not a necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History will not judge Doha by its communiqu\u00e9s but by whether the promises made\u2014on rights, jobs and equity\u2014reach people. Implementation is feasible, as there are financing options even in the poorest countries. If leaders go ahead, Doha will be remembered not as an echo of 1995, but as the moment words gave way to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isabel Ortiz<\/strong>, Director, Global Social Justice, was Director at the International Labor Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, and a senior official at the UN and the Asian Development Bank.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

IPS UN Bureau<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Session of the Second World Summit for Social Development in Doha<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DOHA, Nov 12 2025 (IPS) - Qatar hosted the Second World Summit for Social Development from 4\u20136 November. According to the United Nations, more than 40 Heads of State and Government, 230 ministers and senior officials, and nearly 14,000 attendees took part. Beyond plenaries and roundtables, more than 250 \u201csolution sessions\u201d identified practical ways to advance universal rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-social-watch-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1261,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions\/1261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialwatch.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}