Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development

A/RES/51/202No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 45Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development, published in 1997.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 1996–1999

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 1999).

1999A/RES/54/23Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social DevelopmentLatestCompare with previous version
1999A/RES/53/28Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social DevelopmentLatestCompare with previous version
1998A/RES/52/25Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social DevelopmentCompare with previous version
1997A/RES/51/202Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social DevelopmentCompare with previous version
1996A/RES/50/161Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What does this mandate say?

51 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms the commitments adopted by heads of State and Government contained in the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Developmentand the Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Developmentand their pledge to give the highest priority to national, regional and international policies and actions for the promotion of social progress, justice and the betterment of the human condition, based on full participation by all;

Recognizes the necessity to create a framework for action to place people at the centre of development and direct economies to meet human needs more effectively;

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the outcome of the Summit;

Emphasizes that economic development, social development and environmental protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development;

Stresses the need for renewed and massive political will at the national and international levels to invest in people and their well-being to achieve the objectives of social development;

Emphasizes that democracy, respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms, transparent and accountable governance and administration in all sectors of society, as well as effective participation by civil society, are indispensable foundations for the realization of social and people-centred sustainable development;

Stresses that social development is clearly linked to the development of peace, freedom, stability and security, both nationally and internationally;

National action and international cooperation for social development

Stresses that social development and the implementation of the Programme of Action of the Summit are primarily the responsibility of Governments, while recognizing that international cooperation and assistance are essential for their full implementation;

Notes with satisfaction the initiatives and actions taken by Governments towards the implementation of the commitments of the Summit, including, inter alia, the launching of initiatives to eradicate poverty, the review and reformulation of existing social policies and laws based on an integrated approach to social development, the organization of seminars and conferences and the establishment of national focal points, and urges Governments that have not yet done so to establish appropriate national follow-up mechanisms;

Reiterates its call to Governments to define time-bound goals and targets for reducing overall poverty and eradicating absolute poverty, expanding employment and reducing unemployment, and enhancing social integration, within each national context;

Urges national Governments to formulate or strengthen comprehensive cross-sectoral strategies for implementing the Summit outcome and national strategies for social development;

Acknowledges the key role of developing country actors and institutions in creating and implementing effective programmes to maximize the positive impact of investments in social development;

Reiterates the call of the Summit for Governments to assess on a regular basis national progress towards implementing the outcome of the Summit, possibly in the form of periodic national reports outlining successes, problems and obstacles, and encourages Governments to submit such information on a voluntary basis to the Commission for Social Development;

Expresses its solidarity with people living in poverty in all countries, and reaffirms that the satisfaction of basic human needs is an essential element of poverty eradication, those needs being closely interrelated and comprising nutrition, health, water and sanitation, education, employment, housing and participation in cultural and social life;

Reaffirms the need to strengthen, in a spirit of partnership, international, regional and subregional cooperation for social development and implementing the outcome of the Summit;

Calls on all Governments and the United Nations system, in particular the relevant funds, programmes and agencies, to promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective and to use gender analysis as a tool for the integration of a gender dimension into the planning and implementation of policies, strategies and programmes on social development;

Mobilization of financial resources

Recognizes that the implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action will require the mobilization of financial resources at the national and international levels, as set out in commitments 8 and 9 of the Declaration and paragraphs 87 to 93 of the Programme of Action;

Invites Governments to contribute to the Trust Fund for the Follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development to finance programmes, seminars and activities in support of the implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action;

Recognizes that the implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action in developing countries, in particular in Africa and the least developed countries, will need additional financial resources and more effective development cooperation and assistance;

Stresses the need for all countries to develop economic policies to promote and mobilize domestic savings and attract external resources for productive investment, and to seek innovative sources of funding, both public and private, for social programmes, while ensuring their effective utilization, and in the budgetary process, to ensure transparency and accountability in the use of public resources, and to give priority to providing and improving basic social services;

Welcomes the recent initiatives of the Bretton Woods institutions, including the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative, and the ongoing process at the international level regarding debt relief, as appropriate, for developing countries, and calls upon the international community, including international financial institutions, to implement fully and effectively all initiatives that will contribute to a durable solution of the debt problems of developing countries, in particular African countries and the least developed countries, and thus support their efforts to achieve social development;

Stresses the importance of encouraging national initiatives for social development, including, inter alia, credit for people living in poverty, particularly women, along the model of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in connection with self-employment and income-generation to address the feminization of poverty, and notes with interest the microcredit summit to be held in Washington, D.C., in February 1997;

Takes note of the efforts of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to incorporate social development into their policies and programmes and urges the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral development institutions, to continue to study the impact of structural adjustment programmes on economic and social development and to assist adjusting countries in creating conditions for economic growth, job creation, poverty eradication and social development;

Reaffirms the urgent need for the international community to strive for the fulfilment of the agreed target of 0.7 per cent of the gross national product of developed countries for overall official development assistance as soon as possible, an increase in the share of funding for social development programmes commensurate with the scope and scale of activities required to achieve the objectives and goals of the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and the Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development;

Endorses Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/48 of 26 July 1996 on new and innovative ideas for generating funds, in which, inter alia, the Council decided that funds generated by new and innovative ideas should not substitute for official development assistance, that they should be distinct from funding the regular budget and the peacekeeping budget of the United Nations, and should be part of global partnership and interdependence and that the role of private investment in financing development should be stressed;

Reaffirms the importance of agreeing on a mutual commitment between interested developed and developing country partners to allocate, on average, 20 per cent of official development assistance and 20 per cent of the national budget, respectively, to basic social programmes, and takes note with appreciation of the outcome of the meeting held at Oslo from 23 to 25 April 1996,which reaffirmed that promoting access for all to basic social services was essential for sustainable development and should be an integral part of any strategy to overcome poverty;

Recognizes the necessity of providing appropriate technical cooperation and other forms of assistance to the countries with economies in transition, as set out in the provisions of the Declaration and Programme of Action;

Involvement of civil society and other actors

Reaffirms the need for effective partnership and cooperation between Governments and the relevant actors of civil society, the social partners, the major groups as defined in Agenda 21,including non-governmental organizations and the private sector, in the implementation of and follow-up to the Declaration and Programme of Action, and for ensuring their involvement in the planning, elaboration, implementation and evaluation of social policies at the national level;

Encourages non-governmental organizations to participate in the work of the Commission for Social Development, in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31 of 25 July 1996 and decision 1996/315 of 14 November 1996, and in the implementation process related to the Summit to the maximum extent possible;

The role of the United Nations system

Takes note of Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/7, by which it decided that the Commission for Social Development, as a functional commission of the Council, shall have the primary responsibility for the follow-up to and review of the implementation of the Summit and decided to enlarge the membership of the Commission from thirty-two to forty-six and to annualize its meetings;

Takes note also of the decision of the Council on a new structure of the agenda and multi-year programme of work of the Commission for the years 1997-2000, with "Follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development" as its substantive item, incorporating also the review of relevant United Nations plans and programmes of action pertaining to the situation of social groups;

Takes note further of the decision of the Council on the revised method of work of the Commission, including the formation of panels of experts;

Invites Governments to support the work of the Commission, including through the participation of high-level representatives on social development issues and policies;

Reaffirms that the Council will provide overall guidance and oversee system-wide coordination in the implementation of the Summit outcome and make recommendations in this regard;

Welcomes Economic and Social Council agreed conclusions 1996/1 on coordination of the United Nations system activities for poverty eradication and calls for their implementation by all organizations of the United Nations system;

Welcomes Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/36, in which it decided to continue to ensure, on a regular basis, the harmonization and coordination of the multi-year work programmes of relevant functional commissions by promoting a clear division of labour among them and providing clear policy guidance to them;

Renews its call to all relevant organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system to be involved in the follow-up to the Summit, and invites specialized agencies and related organizations of the United Nations system to strengthen and adjust their activities, programmes and medium-term strategies, as appropriate, to take into account the follow-up to the Summit;

Invites the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme to continue, as a contribution, inter alia, to the United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, the effort launched in 1996 with the Poverty Strategies Initiative, in order to strengthen assistance in the elaboration of national plans, programmes and strategies to eradicate poverty in developing countries, particularly African countries and the least developed countries, and calls upon all countries to contribute to the Initiative;

Welcomes the initiative taken by the Administrative Committee on Coordination to establish inter-agency task forces on follow-up to international conferences, and emphasizes the importance of continued and enhanced cooperation and coordination by all relevant organs, organizations and programmes of the United Nations system and the specialized agencies in the implementation of the programmes of action that emerged from the Summit and other recent United Nations conferences;

Requests the Administrative Committee on Coordination to report to the Economic and Social Council on the outcome of the work of those task forces and on future inter-agency coordination on the implementation by the United Nations system of the outcome of the Summit;

Takes note of the initiatives taken by the regional commissions in the implementation of the outcome of the Summit, and urges their continued involvement and support in the promotion of the implementation of the objectives of the Summit at the regional and subregional levels;

Renews its invitation to the regional commissions, within their mandates and in cooperation with the regional intergovernmental organizations and banks, to convene on a biennial basis, a meeting at a high political level to review the progress made towards implementing the outcome of the Summit, to exchange views on their respective experiences and to adopt appropriate measures, and welcomes the offer by the Government of Brazil to host such a meeting at Sao Paulo in 1997, and welcomes the invitation extended by the Government of Austria to host a regional follow-up meeting to the Summit at Vienna at the beginning of 1998;

Reiterates its invitation to the International Labour Organization, which because of its mandate, tripartite structure and expertise, has a special role to play in the field of employment and social development, to continue to contribute to the implementation of the Programme of Action and to the consideration by the Commission on Social Development of the theme "Productive employment and sustainable livelihoods" in 1997;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to ensure an effectively functioning secretariat, within which clear responsibility is assigned to assist in the implementation of the follow-up to the Summit and the servicing of the intergovernmental bodies involved, and to continue to ensure close cooperation at the secretariat level between all the United Nations entities involved in the Summit follow-up;

Special session of the General Assembly in the year 2000 for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the outcome of the Summit

Recalls its resolution 50/161, in which it decided to hold a special session in the year 2000 for an overall review and appraisal of the implementation of the outcome of the Summit and to consider further actions and initiatives;

Decides to organize the preparatory process of the special session on the following basis:

The Commission for Social Development, as the functional commission of the Economic and Social Council with the primary responsibility for follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development, and for review of the implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action, will undertake work in 1999-2000 for the preparations of the special session, in accordance with its programme of work as set out in Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/7;

A preparatory committee of the whole of the General Assembly is to be established at its fifty-second session; the committee will hold an organizational session in 1998; it will initiate its substantive activities in 1999 on the basis of inputs by the Commission for Social Development and the Economic and Social Council; and it will also take into account contributions by other relevant organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system;

Reaffirms that the follow-up to the Summit will be undertaken on the basis of an integrated approach to social development and within the framework of a coordinated follow-up to and implementation of the results of the major international conferences in the economic, social and related fields;

Requests the Secretary-General to report on the implementation of the outcome of the Summit to its fifty-second session;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-second session the item entitled "Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development" and to consider the implications for a more coherent treatment of related items on its agenda.

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Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development

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