The Second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD), was held in Doha, Qatar, from Nov. 4-6, 2025, at the Qatar National Convention Centre. Organized by the United Nations General Assembly, the summit was particularly significant as it marked 30 years since the original World Summit in Copenhagen, in 1995. The Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development was celebrated for its vision but was later criticized due to a lack of follow-through actions by national governments, a deficiency the 2025 Summit was explicitly designed to rectify.

In fact, progress on half of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is weak, and on 18% of targets is actually in reverse, leading the UN World Social Report to declare a “global social crisis” marked by inequality, insecurity, and diminishing trust. Key challenges include widening hunger and poverty, with nearly 700 million people still living in extreme poverty and over 670 million experiencing hunger, and massive inequality, where the richest 1% own nearly half of global wealth. Furthermore, almost four billion people lack access to any form of social protection, and intensifying climate-driven instability is cited as the single largest obstacle to social development. The outcome of the international response was the adoption of the Doha Political Declaration, a high-level resolution described as an “action-oriented political declaration” that reaffirms global commitments and renews the pledges made at the 1995 Copenhagen Summit.

The Declaration outlines a range of specific policy commitments intended to guide national action and policy alignment such as expanding universal, gender-responsive social protection systems and ensuring equitable access to health and education for all citizens, emphasizing a “people-first approach.” A major focus is on ensuring that marginalized groups including youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, and indigenous peoples are meaningfully engaged in shaping policies that affect their lives. It promotes macroeconomic policies that generate decent jobs, invest in the care sector, and advance safe, inclusive digital transformation.

The limited success of the Doha Declaration stems from its fundamental lack of concrete, binding indicators and enforcement mechanisms, leaving progress to the “goodwill of nations,” a mechanism proven ineffective in climate and development goals. The relative lack of success in achieving the social development goals set since the 1995 Copenhagen Summit stems from a fundamental lack of political and financial will. UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock highlighted this frustration, noting that often “we have the solution [but] we are either unable or unwilling to do what needs to be done”. Juan Somavia, who chaired the original 1995 summit, echoed this sentiment, stating that participants are “very good at being ambitious, less so at how to implement.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that developing countries are “not getting the level of support they need.” The Declaration’s primary failure is its inability to finance its own ambition, thereby solidifying a global structure that protects concentrated wealth over social stability. The ultimate success of the Doha Summit hinges on fundamentally shifting social development from a voluntary pledge to mandatory requirements. The solution lies not in new declarations, but in creating detailed, non-combative enforcement mechanisms that link financial aid, reconstruction, and global market access directly to measurable social investment. ​The core issue is that social development is currently treated as an optional expense sacrificed to fiscal prudence, and must be made a mandatory component of national economic practice.

To bridge the gap between idealistic commitments and concrete national policy, all UN member states should be required to develop and submit a binding, time-bound policy within 12 months of the Doha Summit. This plan must explicitly detail how the Declaration’s commitments such as climate resilience and social inclusion will translate into tangible policy change engaging ministries of finance, labour, and digital policy. Successful initiatives were demonstrated and cited during the forum. For example, the Citra Social Innovation Lab, founded in 2018 as a co-financed initiative between the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Government in Sri Lanka, trained over 170 life skills instructors and equipped nearly 15,000 young people from diverse backgrounds with skills in diversity and inclusion, critical media, innovation and entrepreneurship. This model shifts reliance from external aid to a financially resilient local ecosystem, demonstrating a path toward self-sustaining skills development and youth employment. Other developing nations can adopt this co-financing and localized empowerment model to create long-term, sustainable solutions for skill development without being perpetually dependent on foreign assistance.

India’s national digital identity system was presented as another successful initiative for leveraging digital public infrastructure. The system enables comprehensive social inclusion and access to finance, evidenced by its most significant achievement: helping to open more than 300 million bank accounts. India’s success story provides a concrete example of how a national digital identity can serve as a foundational layer for achieving social development goals like poverty eradication and universal access to services. Moreover, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani stressed that social development through global financing is “impossible” without the basic preconditions of domestic rights, safety, and dignity. International aid and reconstruction financing, such as the estimated $70 billion needed for Gaza must be tied to a mandatory, verifiable enforcement mechanism that secures a permanent, enduring ceasefire and ensures the unrestricted entry of aid and medical supplies, upholding humanitarian law.

The 2025 World Social Summit in Doha was envisioned as a new turning point after decades of unfulfilled promises since the 1995 Copenhagen Summit. Yet, despite its strong moral vision and appeals for justice, it risks becoming another aspirational gathering without enforcement. The Declaration’s failure to establish binding obligations, financing mechanisms, or measurable accountability frameworks leaves its noble goals vulnerable to the same inertia that doomed its predecessor. Only a shift from pledge to practice can enable the vision of the 2025 Doha Summit become a feasible framework for inclusive, durable global development.