At the second United Nations Social Summit in Qatar this week, dozens of governments adopted the Doha Political Declaration, renewing their commitments to tackle poverty, create decent work, combat discrimination, expand access to social security, and fulfill human rights. Governments should now match their words with action by enabling the necessary resources to realize these commitments, and next week’s second round of negotiations for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation are an excellent opportunity.
Amidst growing geopolitical tensions, the Doha Political Declaration reaffirms the centrality of human rights for social development, and emphasizes the equal value of all civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, including the right to development. It affirms that “social development and social justice cannot be attained in the absence of peace and security or in the absence of respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Importantly, the declaration affirms the importance of the rights to housing, food, health, education, an adequate standard of living, water, and sanitation.
Crucially, it also emphasizes the need to close the financing gap to achieve these objectives. Ongoing negotiations for a first-ever UN tax convention are a key chance to make progress on this front, as well as states’ agreement in July’s Sevilla commitment “to engage constructively in the negotiations on the United Nations framework convention on international tax cooperation and its protocols and encourage support for the process.”
The UN tax convention negotiations mark a groundbreaking process that started in August this year. They will continue in Nairobi next week and are set to conclude by September 2027. The convention could enable countries to raise an additional hundreds of billions of dollars through fairer and more transparent rules for taxing corporations and wealthy individuals, and effectively addressing tax evasion and illicit financial flows.
This money could help fund rights like education, health care, and social security, which is particularly important as the UN anticipates a large financing gap that undermines the prospects of achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals.
The commitments made in Doha and the progress that could be made to secure the resources governments need to fund them in Nairobi have a particular resonance as youth in Morocco and other countries have taken the streets in the last months to ask for economic justice and quality public services.
Now is the chance for states to put promises into action by enabling governments to have the resources they need to deliver on human rights.