Social Development: Goals, Gaps and Guts

What the paper says

By introducing the concept and dimensions of social development, this article provides a brief background to the Second World Summit for Social Development (SWSSD), discusses the major gaps in achieving social development and accordingly suggests strategies to address the gaps. Drawing mainly from secondary sources, and the author’s earlier work, the article first presents the meaning and multi-levels and multi-dimensions of social development. Second, the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, and the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are referred to as a background to the SWSSD. Years of social development efforts notwithstanding, the current political-economy context has necessitated the SWSSD to reaffirm its commitment to social development values and goals, and address the gaps to accelerate the SDGs. Third, to contribute to the deliberations at the Second Summit, the article discusses 12 gaps in addressing the social development goals, and accordingly suggests strategies such as decolonisation, social and environmental primacy, universal provisions relating to social protection, health, education and employment, which are needed to accelerate the progress. We hope this analysis will help key decision-makers and participants to discuss the gaps and strategies, and reaffirm their social development commitments at the SWSSD.