The co-facilitators of the intergovernmental preparatory process leading up to the Second World Summit for Social Development in November have circulated a revised draft of the political declaration to be adopted at the Summit, followed by intergovernmental consultations and negotiations to refine and finalize the draft political declaration.

Issued on 15 July 2025, the draft political declaration “lays out a bold vision for building a just, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world – thirty years after the original Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development,” a UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) news release notes.

The draft underscores the urgent need to address poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion and to ensure the full, timely, and effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the realization of the SDGs, while leaving no one behind.

The draft reaffirms the intergovernmental commitments related to social development, including those in the political declarations of the 2019 and 2023 SDG Summits, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), and the Compromiso de Sevilla – the outcome of the recent Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). It also reaffirms all human rights, including the right to development, as universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated.

The draft formulates a call to action to close the gaps in the implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and give momentum towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It spells out commitments to:

• Eradicate poverty in all its dimensions through a holistic approach;
• Ensure full and productive employment and decent work for all by focusing on inclusive economic growth, lifelong learning, and policies to transition from informal to formal economies;
• Promote social integration by fostering sustainable, inclusive, just, stable, safe, equitable, and cohesive societies;
• Address cross-cutting priorities to advance social development, including food security and nutrition, universal health coverage (UHC), technology and artificial intelligence (AI), quality education, climate resilience and just transition, disaster risk reduction (DRR), gender equality, and migration, as well as adequate housing, urbanization, water and sanitation, electricity, digital infrastructure, and connectivity and transport; and
• Ensure additional, innovative, adequate, affordable, predictable, and accessible financing from all sources.

The draft also includes provisions on implementation, and follow-up and review, of the political declaration, and calls for renewed multilateral cooperation.

Intergovernmental consultations on the draft were held from 23-25 July 2025. The Second World Summit for Social Development will convene in Doha, Qatar, from 4-6 November. [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on World Social Summit’s Zero Draft Political Declaration]