Twenty years after the landmark “Copenhagen Summit”, speakers in the Commission for Social Development today called for transformative public policies that supported a rights-based vision of a world which uplifted living standards for society’s most neglected while recognizing the vast differences among countries’ abilities to bring about that worthy goal.
Social protections, inclusive employment and equal access to education were essential for ensuring that people with disabilities remained at the heart of development efforts in the post-2015 era, the Special Rapporteur on Persons with Disabilities told the Commission on Social Development today, outlining priorities for her three-year tenure since the establishment of her mandate by the Human Rights Council last December.
Amid widening inequalities both within and among countries, delegates in the Commission for Social Development today tackled the perceived trade-off between economic growth and social progress, debating ways to design policies that could improve overall well-being without sacrificing the productivity that allowed their communities to flourish.
“People-centred” development, brought to prominence at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development, remained especially critical today, as Governments, civil society and the United Nations itself worked to finalize the next generation of international targets meant to improve peoples’ lives, the Commission for Social Development heard, as it moved into day three of its fifty-third session.
Building on the dynamic momentum leading up to the adoption of new post-2015 goals, delegates debated ways to fine-tune a transformative people-centred approach to sustainable development that would leave no one behind, as the Commission on Social Development opened the second meeting of its fifty-third session today.
The Commission for Social Development concluded its fifty-second session today with the approval of six draft resolutions for adoption by the Economic and Social Council that addressed issues of empowerment, older persons and the family, as well as one text that would hone the Commission’s own focus on visual health.
A lack of data, inadequate monitoring and evaluation of social programmes, as well as a dearth of trained professionals hindered the achievement of social development objectives, the Commission tasked with advancing those goals heard today, as it wrapped up its substantive work for the session with discussions on issues affecting vulnerable social groups.
The impact of social factors on sustainable development and the critical role of families were the focus of two panel discussions today in the Commission for Social Development as its first week drew to a close.
Employment remained a challenge for persons with disabilities in many countries, a United Nations expert told the Commission for Social Development, as some delegations described national achievements in that field.
Amid weak economic recovery, rapidly ageing populations and the continuing effects of unemployment on millions of people worldwide, the United Nations and its partners must put forward coherent universal policies that would empower people to take charge of their future and develop greater resilience to external shocks, delegates said today as the Commission for Social Development opened its fifty-second regular session.
