From 4-6 November 2025, the United Nations (UN) will hold the second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD2) in Doha, Qatar. The first summit on social development took place 30 years ago in Copenhagen. The initiative for a new World Social Summit came from UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He had already spoken out in favour of a global summit in his 2021 Our Common Agenda report. At the time, he took up an initiative from the Club de Madrid. This association of former heads of state and government had pointed out that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated the global dynamics of inequality and exclusion and widened the social divide. Progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) had been massively delayed by the pandemic. A stronger commitment to the social goals of the 2030 Agenda was therefore considered necessary – for example, in the form of a new social contract. A second World Social Summit has been proposed to address this.
The UN Member States adopted this demand and decided to hold a summit in 2025. Its general aim is stated as follows:
“to address the gaps and recommit to the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and the Pro-
gramme of Action and its implementation and give momentum towards the implementation of the 2030
Agenda.” (General Assembly Resolution 78/261 of 26 February 2024).
This briefing paper provides information on the background, the political framework, the expectations and the preparatory process for the second World Social Summit. As in 1995, this summit will be held against a difficult political backdrop. Thirty years ago, the first World Social Summit was the ‘social democratic’ response to the neoliberal policies of the Reagan/Thatcher era and the Washington Consensus propagated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In 2025, radical market and reactionary policy recipes are on the rise again. Social rights and the goals of social justice are under attack in many places around the world. But this is precisely why the second World Social Summit is a crucial opportunity to anchor social justice on the global political agenda again. Despite significant challenges, the summit has the potential to bring together progressive civil society actors, trade unions, academics and political forces to work together to strengthen the social dimension of sustainable development.
