ECLAC Advocates for Forging a Global Pact for Inclusive Social Development at Summit to be Held in Qatar

In the framework of the eighth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, taking place in Santiago, Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs shared a policy brief that includes a series of concrete proposals in that direction.

In a new special report presented at the eighth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development (March 31-April 4), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) urged the international community to approve a global pact for inclusive social development during the Second World Summit for Social Development, which will be held on November 4-6 of this year in Doha.

At the event in Chile's capital, ECLAC's Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, provided Li Junhua, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, with a copy of a policy brief entitled The road to the 2025 Second World Summit for Social Development: Towards a pact for inclusive social development, as a contribution to the debates that will take place in November in Qatar.

"The Second World Summit for Social Development will be an opportunity to agree on an inclusive social development pact to contribute to progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and strengthen social cohesion and democracy," ECLAC summarizes in the document.

"The pact should bring together all countries, with aims including to enhance strategic investment, cooperation and mutual benefit, to emphasize rights and to prioritize measures with a view to implementing comprehensive, financially sustainable and resilient policies in response to the recurring crises affecting various parts of the world," the special report explains.

Specifically, ECLAC outlines ten proposals for an inclusive social development pact:

1. Eradicate poverty and hunger.
2. Reduce inequality.
3. Expand universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems.
4. Foster digital social protection to navigate the digital transformation.
5. Reduce gender inequality and strengthen care systems.
6. Strengthen labor inclusion to support the productive transformation.
7. Invest in education as a social mobility mechanism for young people.
8. Transform health systems to move towards universal health.
9. Strengthen pension systems to address rapid population ageing.
10. Mobilize resources and strengthen multilateral cooperation for the financial sustainability of inclusive social development.

The document also recommends four cross-cutting measures for moving towards implementation of the proposed pact: an expansion of the welfare state; the fostering of social dialogue to improve social cohesion; investment in institutions' technical, operational, political and prospective (TOPP) capabilities to strengthen the social institutional framework; and the creation of a regular mechanism to review progress, which could convene on a five-year basis.

This special report published by ECLAC reviews the main milestones of the social development agenda worldwide from the first World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen in 1995, to this year's scheduled event in Qatar. This includes the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in 2015, which illuminated the need to move forward not just on eradicating poverty and hunger but also on reducing inequalities and achieving gender equality, among other goals.

On a regional level, the approval of the Regional Agenda for Inclusive Social Development in 2019 has contributed to establishing the notion of inclusive social development and identifying shared lines of action for accelerating the attainment of the social dimension of the 2030 Agenda in the region.

"Thirty years after the first World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, this Second Summit in Qatar offers a unique opportunity, with the participation of heads of State, to achieve a pact for inclusive social development, which would give the world a road map and give the United Nations a stronger mandate on social matters. This pact will allow for picking up the pace towards attaining the 2030 Agenda; advancing in line with the Pact for the Future; strengthening international cooperation to mobilize resources and achieve the financial sustainability of inclusive social development policies; and strengthening hope and social cohesion, especially, in this time of great uncertainty that we are living through in the world and the region," José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs indicated during the Session on the Second World Summit for Social Development (Qatar, 2025) held at the Forum.

This call comes in addition to the one made on March 24 by the region's countries at the Special Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was contained in the document Latin America and the Caribbean looking ahead to the Second World Summit for Social Development: Proposals for inclusive social development.

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