Review of World Social Summit, 4-6 November 2025 Friday December 19th, 2025
Social development in the Shadows – Time for a Social Justice COP?
Newsletter 16 December 2025
Dear colleagues,
In 1995 in Copenhagen, the World Social Summit attended by 117 Heads of State or Government agreed a comprehensive and interlocking global plan to eradicate poverty, promote full and productive employment, tackle inequality and foster social inclusion. It put people at the centre of development. 30 years later, the international community met at the Second World Summit for Social Development from 4 to 6 November 2025 in Doha, Qatar. But this time, only 40 Heads of State attended.
As Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), we had hoped that this global UN event would become the ‘the inequality summit’. As we live in a world where inequalities became extreme, this is the central challenge for social justice. Unfortunately, this did not happen.
Despite the background of geopolitical tensions, wars and conflicts, important and positive commitments were made, for example, on universal social protection and public services for all. However, these commitments were not backed by concrete plans of action. Overall, the summit did not generate the momentum needed to transform the words of the declaration into genuine movement to achieve its overall goal, that of social justice for all.
This is why we believe that the active participation of a much stronger and well-coordinated civil society is urgently needed to hold governments accountable for their promises and to revive hope.
The objective of the World Social Summit was to recommit to the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action – including its implementation – and to generate momentum towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Hopes were high when the Secretary General of the UN proposed to hold a second World Social Summit.
According to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, the Doha Summit and Declaration is ‘a booster shot for development’ and a ‘people’s plan’. The official outcome document, the Doha Political Declaration, was approved by the Plenary on the morning of the first day, on 4 November. It had been negotiated during the year and finalised on 5 September at the UN Headquarters in New York – though lacking civil society participation in the negotiation process (see more on the Political Declaration below).
According to the official numbers, more than 8,000 people participated in the Summit. In addition to the plenaries and two round tables, there were several special streams of work, delivered by, for example, the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, the Civil Society Forum (see more below) and the Private Sector Forum. There were 250 side events – called Solution Sessions – held in person in the Doha Convention Centre and online. With these broad range of events many participants were happy that their topics were discussed and much networking was done. Still, there was no feeling that we were engaged in a common project or movement for change.
As in other UN summits and conferences this year, the USA did not participate. All other countries participated, but only the Global South sent Heads of States. Most countries sent ministers or senior officials.
It was no surprise, therefore, that media attention was very low. This summit was overshadowed by global processes elsewhere – very concretely by the COP30. On the last day of the World Social Summit, reports about the COP30 dominated media headlines – while there was almost no coverage of the World Social Summit.
This stood in stark contrast to the COP30 in terms of the attention from governments and public and also with the social realities that the summit was supposed to address. This leads to the thinking that we need an Inequality COP for Social Justice with clear targets, timetables and roadmaps and the joint efforts these require, with the backing of concerted energies of civil society and greater outreach to the public.
The Doha Political Declaration
In the current geopolitical context, this is already a win. The monitoring and follow-up arrangements built into the Declaration can be used both for further work on social justice in the coming years and to hold governments accountable now and beyond 2030. It is worth noting too that, while many issues and demands on poverty, full employment and social cohesion were revisited, the declaration addressed new concerns such as the care economy, living wages, artificial intelligence and the digital divide.
Nevertheless, the Summit laid bare the wide gap between rhetoric of UN agreements and the realities they are supposed to address. Concrete commitments are missing. This leads to frustration and loss of confidence in international processes and the role of the United Nations. Assessment of the declaration:
- The declaration describes the problems and challenges – and some successes – related to social development and social justice. See, for example, paragraph 18:
The recognition of existing problems is important, for example, the debt crisis, which remains a serious challenge for social development. Still the analysis is not deep enough. However, as the declaration is a negotiated text between governments, difficult were avoided.
However, it is one thing to say that the achievement of the SDGs is far too slow. But what lies behind this slow progress? One could point to the impact of austerity policies, which are not mentioned at all in the declaration – even though austerity is affecting 84% of the world’s countries, with cuts in health, education and social protection budgets. Austerity is a major driver of poverty and inequality but was not mentioned in the declaration.
- Given the lack of focused analysis, it is not surprising that the declaration lacks vision. At GCAP, we had hoped that this would be the Inequality Summit and that the declaration would put the fight against inequalities at the centre of the path to achieve social justice. Instead, inequalities are only touched on as a problem. The declaration repeats the wording of the Sevilla Commitment (Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development) to continue the reform of the international financial architecture, but this remains an aspiration lacking in detail. The necessary structural changes needed to reduce inequality, including the transformation of the IMF and the World Bank, are not mentioned. Furthermore, there are significant blind spots: discrimination and marginalisation leading to major inequalities are not directly addressed, for example that experienced by Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent.
- The gap between rhetoric and actions: While there are strong messages on public services – universal health care, education, access to water and housing, social protection and to move from informal to formal employment, there are no concrete plans or targets, no roadmaps for implementation and no proposals on the financial resources needed to achieve these lofty goals. The gap between rhetoric and hard reality is as wide as ever.
- The declaration is not always coherent and is also problematic in places in its calls to action. For example, in the section on universal health, the call for private financing or Public Private Partnerships goes against the evidence that this funding is counterproductive. And while it is to be welcomed that the call for social protection emphasizes universality, the mention of social safety nets is inconsistent with the universal approach.
- Good parts include social protection as a major instrument to reduce inequalities and poverty. Social protection is mentioned 25 times in the declaration. Quantity is not everything but it shows the importance of the topic to the aims of the Declaration. There are qualitative elements as well which are to be welcomed. This includes the financing of country-led plans and strategies. The pledge for a minimum of 2% annual increase in social protection coverage is not ambitious enough – it can still serve as a basis for the follow-up work at national level.
Strengthening social protection systems and reinforcing investment in measures, including social protection floors, and integrating financing of social protection systems and policies, including floors and policies in line with International Labour Organization recommendations and intergovernmental agreed standards, into country-led plans and strategies while providing support to developing countries that aim to increase social protection coverage, including those that aim to do so by at least two percentage points per year. Para 29 (g)
- GCAP welcomes the decision within the declaration to review progress every five years. The first global review summit shall take place in 2031. The Commission for Social Development will conduct annual reviews, and the regional commissions are tasked with monitoring and reporting on annual implementation. How this work is to be done and financed is not yet clear. Accountability is mentioned only once in the declaration. But,monitoring reinforces the importance of strong follow-up and accountability mechanisms at national, regional and global levels.
Civil Society Participation
Civil society pre-summit meeting in Doha.
Civil society in the preparation for and during the summit was fragmented and could have been stronger. This reflects shrinking space for civil society in many countries which is also impacting civil society space within the United Nations. It also reflects the lack of coordination within civil society on issues of social development. For civil society to achieve a coherent and strong social justice agenda and to ensure greater accountability from governments, we need to work together more effectively on strategy and improve our coordination.
On a positive note: civil society was present in much greater numbers during the summit than originally anticipated. Many diverse voices could be heard, for example, at the Youth Forum, the solutions events and in those of the Civil Society Forum. 25 GCAP members were able to participate in person, – from all regions: 11 from Asia, 9 from Africa, 3 from Europe and 2 from Latin America and the Caribbean.
GCAP members and partners in Doha during the World Social Summit 2025
On the preparation process: there was no clear and inclusive process for civil society to provide input into intergovernmental negotiations of the Political Declaration, unlike previous Summits. This reflects the contested space for civil society in many countries and at the UN. However, the global networks of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, the Major Group for Children and Youth, the Stakeholder Group on Ageing, the NGO Committee for Social Development, Our Future is Public and GCAP provided regular inputs into the drafts mostly through the UN Missions of Members States in New York and in national capitals. GCAP advocated in New York and in several national capitals on the following demands (see here).
GCAP orgagnised Regional People’s Assemblies in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean to prepare for the summit and the Global People’s Assembly event before the World Social Summit on 29 October 2025 with participation of wider civil society. The People’s Declaration for the World Social Summit resulted from the Assembly, and this was well received and widely distributed during the summit. GCAP also coordinated the Civil Society Preparation meeting in Doha, held after the Youth Forum by the Major Group for Children and Youth.
At the Summit itself, there were many events happening simultaneously, with government-sponsored events taking place in different spaces from those offered to civil society. This meant that at times governments did not participate as expected in civil society-organised events. The layout of the Conference Centre in Doha had a separate floor for government to meet and was only accessible for civil society if accompanied by a government delegation member. This did pose restrictions on government and civil society representatives meeting.
The Civil Society Forum on 5 and 6 November was organised by the NGO Committee for Social Development, which is the official civil society group recognized by the UN to support civil society input and presence at the annual Commission for Social Development. The Forum had an opening and closing. There were ten self-organised ‘Featured Events’ which responded to the 10 commitments from Copenhagen. This created space for key civil society actors to speak and to interact with representatives from governments and the UN system. However, no joint statement was prepared to be brought to the final plenary.
GCAP organised in total seven events including two events at the Civil Society Forum and two official side events. For example, one with GFoD on the situation of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent and on Social Protection, which was broadcast on UN Web TV.
The summit was an opportunity for advocacy. For example, a delegation of GCAP representatives met with Members of the European Parliament and representatives of the European Commission.
Watch the event: Commitment seven on fostering through social protection floors and catalysing support for development for Africa and least developed countries here.
Nuru Maro (Right), GCAP Africa Coordinator, and Beckie Malay (Second from Right), from GCAP Philippines, joined as speakers at the side event, “Gender-responsive social protection and economic transformation in a time of reform,” organised by GCAP and the Feminist Task Force.
GCAP also co-organised another Official Solution Event (virtual), “Debt, Poverty & Human Rights: How to Reform the International Debt Architecture for Global Justice?”, during the Summit on 4 November 2025.
Conclusions
The geopolitical situation and turbulent times for global processes and the existential challenges facing United Nations resulted in less attention and time given to the Summit than the occasion deserved. Civil Society was not well coordinated with its attention given to competing priorities, especially that of climate justice and dealing with ongoing conflicts, especially those in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.
An informed, well-organised and courageous civil Society is crucial to hold governments to account. We must insist on transparent monitoring of implementation, and accountability. Key to this is better coordination and alliance building.
Accountability from the local, to the national, to the regional and to the global will require planning, communication and coordination. At national level, governments together with social partners and civil society can develop concrete plans and time scales to implement global commitments, up to and beyond SDGS by 2030. This must include universal social protection floors and universal health coverage. Several countries have shown that this is possible, and we have tools such as Local Voluntary Reports, Voluntary National Reports and human rights reviews that can support our goals.
But action at the national and regional levels is not enough. The persistence of poverty, discrimination, inequalities and social injustice needs higher attention globally; these are problems rooted in global politics, corporate and individual economic greed and power mongering. This is why we need a unifying idea of a “Social Justice COP”, where governments, civil society, social partners and media come together and put social justice topics high on the agenda for global survival itself and make concrete plans and commitments for the implementation of the Copenhagen commitments renewed in Doha.
In solidarity,
Ingo Ritz
Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)