9th plenary meeting - 64th Session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD64)

Good afternoon, excellencies, distinguished delegates. The 9th meeting of the 64th session of the Commission for Social Development is called to order. I invite the Commission to continue its consideration of agenda item 3a, entitled priority theme, advancing social development and social justice through coordinated, equitable and inclusive policies, in order to hold a multi-stakeholder forum on the theme partnerships that deliver, how to scale up good practices at the local level to end poverty, create jobs and build inclusive societies. I am pleased to welcome you to this multi-stakeholder forum on local innovations that reduce poverty and support livelihoods. I am pleased to welcome the distinguished panelists for our multi-stakeholder forum this afternoon. His Excellency Antonio Sanguino, Minister of Labor of Colombia. Mr. Mo Rong, Think Tank Chief Expert at the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China. Ms. Shelly Nordheim-Golan, Director of the Division for Employment of Welfare Populations at the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs of Israel. Ms. Olena Ivankiv, Adjunct Professor at the Ukraine Catholic University Business School. And Ms. Stephanie Veenet, Head of Stakeholder Engagement at the International Organization of Employers. I'm also pleased to welcome the moderator, Ms. Maria Fornela Oenninger, representative of Soroptimist International. Ms. Fornela Oenninger, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, partners, friends, good morning. As the chair already said, my name is Maria Fornela Oenninger. I'm a Soroptimist International representative in New York. to the UN in New York, and it's my honor to be here on the occasion of the 64th session of the Commission on Social Development. Segment one will deal with local innovations that reduce poverty and support livelihoods. This conversation could not be timelier. Three decades after Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, the international community reaffirmed in Doha its commitment to place people at the center of development, to eradicate poverty, promote full and productive employment, and foster social inclusion as the foundations of peace, resilience, and prosperity. Both Copenhagen and Doha remind us of a simple but powerful truth. Governments alone cannot deliver social development. Progress happens when local authorities, communities, workers, cooperatives, social movements, academia, and the private sector work together, grounded in trust, accountability, and shared purpose. A human rights-based, whole-of-society, and whole-of-government approach is indispensable for social policy coherence and sustainability. Today's panel focuses not on abstract commitments, but on partnerships that deliver results, partnerships that work on the ground close to people's lives and can be scaled up to meet the urgency of our times. Across regions, we see local governments co-designing social protection schemes with communities, supporting local job creation, formalizing informal work, and investing in care services that sustain both livelihoods and social cohesions. We see community activists and social networks driving change from the bottom up. We see cooperatives and rural development foundations expanding access to decent work, finance, food security, and sustainable livelihoods, especially in rural and marginalized areas that too often remain invisible in national strategies. And we see academia and the private sector engage responsibly, contributing research, innovation, financing, and scale, helping transform successful experiments into systems that endure. What unites these diverse actors is not only collaboration, but real co-ownership. As emphasized in the Doha Declaration, social development must be built through inclusive, participatory, and people-centered approaches. ensuring that no one is left behind, whether by geography, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, age, disability, or employment status. This panel brings together a diversity of stakeholders, representatives of member states, private sector, academia, each offering distinct perspectives, responsibilities, and capacities. Let us be clear, scaling up is not only about size, it's about replicability, sustainability, and dignity. It is about investing in people and institutions that are rooted locally, but connected globally. The challenge before us is not a lack of innovation, it's how we scale up what works without losing inclusion, accountability, or trust. I encourage a frank and solution-oriented discussion, one that highlights challenges as well as successes. and that offers concrete lessons Member States and partners can take forward beyond this session. I invite the audience to think about these lessons and how they can be translated in action beyond this room. Let us use this dialogue to reaffirm that partnerships are not optional, they are essential. And when they're inclusive, innovative and accountable, they can indeed deliver on the promise of ending poverty, creating decent jobs and building inclusive societies for all. Thank you. I will now proceed to tell you the format of this session. Each panelist will have five to seven minutes to speak, followed by a question by me. So after each panelist, I will ask that panelist a question before moving on to the next panelist. That will keep the discussion going and advance it faster. I now invite His Excellency, Mr. Antonio Sanguino, Minister of Labor of the Republic of Colombia to take the floor.

Thank you.

Very much, distinguished ministers of state, representatives of workers organizations, from the business sector, from civil society, and representatives of international cooperation and academia. Greetings from President Gustavo Petro. I would like to express my gratitude for being invited to this multi-stakeholder forum on how to implement good practices at the local level to end poverty, create jobs, and build inclusive societies. And I'd like to begin with a clear idea that we have in the government of Colombia, and that is that decent work is the most powerful social policy. Where you have decent work, you have a stable income, you have access to social protection, you have mobility, and also equal development. And it is with that conviction in mind that under the leadership of the president of Colombia, we have worked on different fronts. By December 2025, Colombia had achieved a total of 2.247 million jobs generated since September 2022. That is to say, new jobs. However, the biggest structural challenge that all countries face in order to close poverty gaps and inequality gaps is informality. In December of 2025, the proportion of the population that was working informally across the country was at 55.5%, which is a reduction of almost three percentage points compared to 2022. Despite continuing to be a challenge, this does demonstrate a downward trend in informality in the total aggregate figures at the national level for the previous year. However, we can't talk about employment, poverty and inclusion without talking about women and care. the employment gap between men and women went from 4.9 to 3.7 percent with a reduction of 1.2 percentage points. Labor reform undertaken by our government undoubtedly has been a major impetus in the formalization of traditionally precarious sectors that were dominated by women, thus bolstering the economic and social value of care work. And our reform is strengthening the formalization of domestic work, guaranteeing formal contracts, obligatory registration with social security, full access to pensions, health care, labor protection, and social services, as well as limits on daily work time. for those who are working over many days at a time. Also, persons working in children's homes and care homes are being more directly included in the Colombian Institution of Family Wellbeing, thus overcoming their exclusion and ensuring decent work. The reform also establishes a gradual program to totally formalize those working in the school food programs. It also incorporates a responsible focus on care through provisions on flexible working time and working modalities that are adapted to persons that have family responsibilities and care responsibilities for persons with disabilities. The measures that have been taken in the labor sphere have undoubtedly had a significant impact on achieving tangible progress. by the government in the reduction of poverty, inequality and exclusion in Colombia. In line with the official figures from the National Statistics Department, monetary policy has fallen by almost three percentage points, which represents around two million people that have overcome this circumstance. Colombia is convinced that it is only through partnerships and social dialogue that it will be possible to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities, and build truly inclusive societies. From the Government of Change in Colombia, we remain committed to sharing the lessons that we've learned, strengthening cooperation, and moving jointly towards a development that leaves no one behind. These results are gratifying to us because we're talking about one of the most unequal countries on the planet and perhaps one of the two least equal countries in Latin America. Thank you very much.

I thank Mr. Sanguino, and I will follow up with a quick question. Colombia's labor reform has delivered tangible results, including the creation of new employment for over 2 million workers and advances in the formalization of work with a focus on women and youth and care work. How was this national reform translated into action at the local level and what specific partnerships with local governments, employers, workers, organizations, and civil society were essential, since you mentioned them, were essential to making implementation a reality on the ground. You now have the floor for two minutes.

Colombia has a tripartite consultation system for consultation on labor and employment policies, and it's called the Consultation Commission, and there we discuss and agree on.

Microphone for the speaker, please.

In this case, we also work on the regulation of provisions that derive from our most recent labor reform, the law 2466 of 2025. Within that format, we discussed and agreed upon a large part of the regulations for this reform. At the same time, the Ministry of Labor and the national government, via the ministry, has a presence across the national territory in the 32 departments. In each of those departments, we have a regional or departmental office of the Ministry of Labor, which advances the inspection, oversight, and supervision activities in the field of employment to ensure that rights are being upheld and that the legal provisions of the law are being complied with when it comes to rights, productivity, and employment. In the most recent period, we have refocused these supervisions and inspection activities to ensure that we are constantly supervising and watching over and monitoring this with a gender perspective, looking at the rights of women in the workplace and the elimination of violence affecting them. Finally, we have incorporated rights that had been forgotten in the past for the last two decades, rights to do, for example, with salaries, the length of night shifts, the length of the workday on holidays, public holidays. We have been steadily reducing the length of the workday. This year, the weekly work time will be 42 hours. with eight hours per day as the established work time, ranging from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. And we have made a great deal of effort towards labor formalization in sectors that traditionally were highly precarious and informal. Thank you very much.

I thank Mr. Zangino. And let me turn now to Mr. Move around.

Thank you, moderator. Distinguished chair, delegates, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you China's policies and practices in job creation and inclusive development. China is a developing country with the largest human resources. We have 969 million people, working age people. And for a long time, we are adhering to the concept of people-centered development. And we have made clear that employment is the most basic component of people's well-being, placed it at the forefront of economic and social development, consistently upheld and implemented an employment-first strategy and policies. thus achieving long-term, stable and sustained economic growth. Last year, China's economic growth rate was 5%. And we have seen remarkable results in employment, capacity expansion and inclusive development. First, we always regard employment as a priority in national governance and economic and social development. In 2020, 12, in 2010, China proposed the idea of prioritizing promoting employment in its 12th five-year plan and proposed its employment first policy in 2012. The report to the 18th CPC National Congress proposed the idea of more employment opportunities as an important goal for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. We have achieved that goal already. And in 2012, we clearly proposed a policy featuring self-reliant employment, market-regulated employment, and government-backed employment, and entrepreneurship. This is a brand new employment policy combining workers, the government, and the market. At the end of 2018, the Central Economic Work Conference for the first time proposed a policy called Employment First. In 2010, it was a concept, but in 2018, it has become a policy. This made employment first policy, proactive fiscal policy, and prudent monetary policy the three major macro regulation policies and are included in a new national economic policies. In October 2022, the report to the 20th CPC National Congress further emphasized strengthening employment first policy and improving related mechanisms to promote high quality and full employment, which means that we would want more than full employment. After realizing full employment, we want to have high quality employment. This highlights China's commitment to addressing employment and ensuring and improving people's well-being through development as a major mission of China and a key governance strategy of the country. An example would be a county in Zhejiang province with mountainous areas, guided by the goal that everyone has work and every household has income, has achieved common prosperity through initiatives such as co-ops for 20 people, prosperity workshops providing jobs for 5,000 people. in the areas of craft products, and there are also platforms for selling these products. They also have welfare jobs totaling 2,000. These are for the most vulnerable people to be able to find employment. Government has provided subsidies for these jobs so that everybody has a job. And these initiatives have achieved common prosperity in these mountainous areas so that people can be integrated into society and see inclusive development. Second, we foster new economic forms to promote the healthy development of new forms of employment. In 2021, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and seven other departments jointly issued the guidance on safeguarding the labor rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment, which for the first time clarified the responsibilities of platform in companies A related example is a pilot program in Zhejiang province, 1+5+N pilot project. It combines policies and measures in an integrated form to put new forms of labor protection in new forms of employment in 2023. Three million people benefited from this pilot, and thanks to this pilot project in Zhejiang province, our statistics show that there was a 40% reduction in employment disputes and worker satisfaction rose from 68% to 86%. Statistics show that In 2024, China's digital economy reached 62 trillion yuan, more than 40% of its GDP. Platform companies provided 240 million jobs, including 84 million direct jobs and 156 million indirect ones. Third, we encourage and support innovation and entrepreneurship and support the development of the private sector and MSMEs. We are implementing the innovation driven development strategy and are supporting job creation by encouraging startups. Startups and entrepreneurship have become a major engine of China's employment growth and its related policies have been continuously enriched and improved. For example, in 2018, the State Council issued policy, an updated policy on innovation and entrepreneurship, which included 29 specific policies. For example, we would provide individual startup loans as high as half a million and we provide loans to individual businesses as far as 3 million. Startup companies could get zero interest loans From 2013 to 2023, in this 10 year period, China issued more than 2 trillion yuan in such loans, directly supporting over 4 million entrepreneurs and over 15 million jobs. An interesting fact is that by the end of 2024, China had a large number of registered self-employed businesses. You can all call them micro enterprises comprising of less than five people. There were to 124 million self-employed businesses, an increase of 47 million, increased compared with 10 years ago, creating 300 million jobs. China regards the private sector MSMEs as a prominent part of its national development strategy. The aim is to keep employment base stable from 2012 to 23 the number of enterprises rose from fewer than 10 million to over 53 million increase of 43 million and their share among all businesses in the country rose from 79.4% to 92.3% fourth China considers skills development an important path to inclusive development China is has been continuously running national vocational training initiatives such as vocational skills improvement project, skilled China, and skills light up the future, which is currently being implemented. By the end of 2024, over 1,500 vocational education groups have been created. There were over 2,400 technical schools and colleagues which produced 1 million graduates each year. and we have high education colleagues and universities which could provide over 12 million skilled workers and we have more than 220 million skilled workers including over 72 million highly skilled ones. China's policies for job creation, inclusive development have achieved significant results. During the 14th five-year plan period from 2021 to October 25, our plan was to create 55 million jobs, but we achieved the increase of 61.2 million new jobs, the national surveyed unemployment rate averaged 5.3 in the first four years, lower than the 5.5%, the expected target. The number of rural migrant workers in non-agricultural sectors grew to nearly 300 million, and the scale of non-agricultural employment for people lifted out of poverty exceeded 30 million. These results take employment first as our goal so that our people could have worked diligently, decently, enjoy employment income growth, and ultimately achieve common prosperity. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mo, for a thorough presentation. so many of the questions that had occurred to me, you ended up responding specifically. So we can now move to the next speaker. Let me now turn to Ms. Shelly Nordheim-Golan to add a practical dimension on how to reintegrate populations into the workforce. Ms. Shelly Nordheim, you now have the floor.

About local innovations that reduce poverty and support livelihoods, in Israel, we not only provide employment services, but also provide employment services by the Ministry of Welfare. The employment strategy of the Ministry of Welfare of the State of Israel is built on a powerful philosophy that work is more than just a paycheck. The ultimate goal, based on values, is to foster socioeconomic mobility. empowering individuals and families to build sustainable careers, improve resilience and quality of life, and finally, ultimately, break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. This approach recognizes that true independence comes from not from simply finding any job, but from securing what the ministry defines as decent work. Employment that is safe, provides a fair living wage, and offers opportunities for growth and personal fulfillment. The ministry's programs are designed to provide the tools, skills, and personalized support needed to navigate the path towards a stable and fulfillment professional life. These assistant programs are designed for populations connecting with complex barriers that hinder their intergeneration integration into the world of work. This population is characterized by multidimensional and systemic barriers, such as dealing with poverty, addiction, violence, or disability. In addition, many experience deep psychological and structural barriers, including an experience of exclusion and a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Our strategic rests on the next pillars. The first is investment in human capital, tailoring skills to specific needs of vulnerable populations. Second is physical and digital infrastructure, a nationwide network of hubs that make support accessible to all. And the third is operation through the welfare departments located in and under the responsibility of local municipalities. The fourth is diverse collaborations. I would like to showcase key plans and strategies we have found best for achieving results. First of all, a strategy based on developing the field of employment social work, an innovative practice that applies social work principles to bridge the gap between social welfare and the labor market. We use a holistic intervention to empower individuals and create sustainable pathways to employment. Second, our opportunity centers. serve as the core infrastructure operating under a one-stop shop model managed by local municipal social services departments as central hubs for urban employment services. These centers focus on addressing complex psychosocial barriers to ensure long-term employment. Their methodology is grounded in intensive interventions to foster foundational skills and self-efficacy. An additional program is the FOCUS program, an innovative program which specialized in expert-led interventions dedicated for adults with learning disabilities and ADHD with have barriers to labor market integration. The program strengthens vocational self-efficacy through and providing practical self-management strategies such as time management, organization, and interpersonal communication. I want to move beyond the traditional concept of welfare and discuss a strategic partnership involving local authorities, the business sector, and civil society. In Israel, the frontier of poverty, frontline of poverty reduction is the local municipality. They are the interest of the community. Local authorities take full responsibility for their residents' stability. A key driver of the innovation is that local authorities participate in 25% of the budget. This ensures that the local leadership is not just a participant, but a primary stakeholder in the success of every individual. The second pillar of this model is employers as strategic diversity. We invest on analyzing labor market trends and employer needs to ensure that our candidates provide real value from day one. In conclusion, Israel's Ministry of Welfare views employment as a strategic and essential tool for rehabilitation, reducing social gaps, and promoting social mobility. The holistic approach combines data-driven policy, investment in infrastructures, and the operation of personalized programs that place the needs of the individual at the center. The Israeli model demonstrates that poverty reduction is most effective when it is local, owned by the municipality, and driven by a business mindset. We don't just support livelihood, we restore human dignity. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Nordheim. Very interesting the way Israel has structured the job creation, relating it to populations, vulnerable populations in welfare and how to transition them to decent jobs and restore their dignity. Could you elaborate on the role of the occupational social worker in the policy you just described, and maybe add a couple of sentences about the training of your staff, since this is such an original model?

Yes, thank you. Israel's welfare services operate with the recognition that work is a fundamental right and a critical resource for personal and family development. The role of employment social work is based on two main axes of expertise. First, creating a therapeutic relationship, understanding complex life situations, inclusion and motivation for emotional and cognitive change. The second one is occupational advancement axis, is promoting familiarity with the world of work, analyzing market trends, developing employment skills, and learning job search skills. The clients are people who are not employed or are in underemployment, which is work that does not match their skills, work with low wages or part-time jobs. These clients often face multiple barriers. First will be human capital barriers, low education, lack of experience or computer skills. The second is internal barriers, like self-perception of incompetence or lack of self-efficacy. The third is environmental barriers, lack of support systems and lack of family support. The work of the social worker expresses the ability to work systematically while integrating additional factors in the community, involving the family and strengthening occupational skills. About training them is in collaboration with NGOs, the Ministry of Health developed a model of professional standards for employment coordinators. This model has around 18 parameters which improve the work of the coordinators with the individual. These principles are used in the process of assisting the participant in the programs. Every employment coordinator who goes through the process with a client for at least one year is evaluated on his or her knowledge and receive a professional certificate for this. In addition, there is an entry-level course for the position and an advanced skills course. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Norden. We can now move to the next speaker, Ms. Olena Ivankiv.

Thank you, moderator. Dear Madam Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, and panelists, we talk a lot about partnerships, financing, and policies for sustainable development. But in practice, the biggest gap I see is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of ability to work together. My name is Elena Ivankiv, and I have an honor to represent Ukrainian Catholic University from Ukraine. For many years, I have worked at the intersection of education, business, and community development. From my experience teaching sustainable development to business leaders, education matters most when it works with real challenges, real people, and real places. When it reconnects people, it creates change. In Ukraine, the war shapes our reality, but it does not define our capacity to act, build resilience, and start recovery now. Fourth year of full-scale invasion and 12 years of the start of the aggression. Nearly 5 million people are internally displaced. At the same time, most rural communities are shrinking, losing population, skills, and economic activity. Local businesses report labor shortages, while displaced people are actively seeking meaningful work. This is not a shortage of people, jobs or resources. It is a shortage of mechanisms that connect them. And this gap is what reproduces poverty and inequality at the local level. At the end of 2025, I was invited by a donor to facilitate a human-centered design workshop for senior managers of NGOs and foundations. The donor claimed to be tired of financing projects where displaced people and communities remain passive recipients and the projects are not sustainable in the long run. So instead of starting with typical project proposals or funding frameworks, we began with listening. The team spent an entire day conducting open interviews with displaced people, not as project managers, but as listeners. One insight became impossible to ignore. Displaced people do not primarily need charity. They need dignity. They want to feel useful. They want to apply their skills, and after years of losing homes and roots, They want to belong again. When we then moved into a rural community, another gap became visible. The community itself struggled to articulate who they are, what skills they need, and whom they actually need to attract in order to grow. Local small businesses were operating in isolation, aware of workforce shortages, but unable to connect their needs with the people around them. Only when all three perspectives came together, displaced people, the community, the local business, did a viable, self-sustaining solution emerge. And most importantly, the stakeholders designed the solution themselves. They were involved from the very beginning as co-creators, not beneficiaries. The second initiative we piloted last year was a project called Business on the Frontlines. Together with my colleagues and partners from University of Notre Dame, we worked with MBA students, experienced business leaders, and placed them inside a local community for one full week. They lived there, they worked there, and they tackled three real development projects in the community. Historic palace to be reborn as a recreational and cultural destination, an industrial park on the site of a former Soviet biggest sulfur factory, and a local historical brewery aiming to develop their expert potential. For many business students, this was the first time they experienced local development, not as an abstract policy discussion, but as a complex ecosystem of people, interests, constraints, and trust. For that one week, the university became a bridge between business, community, and local authority. Actors who are geographically close, but too often disconnected in practice. The scale of loss in Ukraine is enormous. At this scale, education cannot remain detached from reality. It must be reoriented towards solving concrete local challenges. This understanding led us at Ukrainian Catholic University to develop the ServeU initiative. ServU strengthens collaboration between universities and local communities, so education directly contributes to recovery, especially in more affected communities. The logic is simple. Education builds agency. Agency enables recovery. Students work on real local challenges. Communities become co-creators, not recipients. Universities act as platforms that connect people, capacity, and purpose. When they are truly engaged with their communities, this role becomes systemic rather than episodic. Engaged universities are one of the most sustainable forms of societal impact because they carry long-term capacity and institutional memory. If we want to reduce poverty and inequality at the local level, We must invest not only in policies and financing, but in education models that reconnect people, communities, and economic opportunity. Service-oriented, community-based education works because it is local, contextual, and immersive. That makes it especially powerful for conflict-affected countries. Education is what turns policy into practice. This is why Ukraine's experience can contribute to global approaches to recovery and be adapted far beyond our country. And this is why we are ready to share and scale this experience further.

Thank you. Thank you so much for that very interesting and moving presentation on how education can lead to recovery in a state of armed conflict. I will now move to our last speaker, Stephanie Winnett.

Thank you so much. It's a real privilege to take part in this dialogue. And Madam Chair, Madam Moderator, apologies if I joined the panel a few seconds late. I listened really with great interest the various panels before me from the government side, as well as from the civil society side, which I thought was quite interesting to see how employment and enterprises and education are really at the forefront when it comes to social development. I'm from the International Organization of Employers. We hosted a private sector forum in the margins of the World Social Summit in Doha. Thank you again to the government of Qatar for allowing this private sector forum to take place. And we represent employers federation members in 144 countries, and I'm speaking on behalf of the global employers members community. The Doha Summit sent and reiterated an important signal that social development and economic development are inseparable, and that progress on one depends on progress on the other. The political declaration gave us a shared framework. Our responsibility now is to ensure that this framework translates into policies and partnerships that deliver results on the ground. And from the perspective of employers, this is not a theoretical exercise. It's about creating the conditions in which enterprises and entrepreneurs can invest, grow, and create jobs, thereby contributing to social development. Job creation is the engine of social development. Decent work, rising incomes, social protection, and inclusion all depend on the existence of sustainable enterprises. Employers do not create jobs as a side effect. Job creation is the result of businesses, entrepreneurs succeeding, innovating, and expanding. If companies cannot win, if they cannot remain competitive, they cannot hire, train, or retain workers. And when enterprises succeed, workers, communities, and societies can succeed with them. And this is the essence of a win-win approach to social development. The Doha political declaration recognizes this reality in important ways. For instance, we really appreciate the strong emphasis on education, skills and lifelong learning. For us, skills are the currency of growth. Across sectors and regions, companies are facing acute skills shortages that limits productivity and job creations. Companies need skills to operate at large scale, and that is why employers are actively investing in training, apprenticeships, and reskilling initiatives. We also strongly welcome the declaration's positive approach to innovation, technology, and digitalization. Innovation is not a threat to social development. It's one of its strongest drivers. And the declaration also acknowledges the central role of the private sector, entrepreneurship and sustainable enterprises, with particular attention to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. And this recognition really matters to us. MSMEs account for the majority of jobs worldwide, especially in developing economies. And China has also just shared some of the data on the rich SME and entrepreneurial ecosystem in China. The SMEs are often the first entry point into the labor market for young people and for women, and they are deeply embedded in local communities. However, recognition alone is not enough. Implementation must focus on creating a truly enabling environment for enterprises and SMEs to thrive. This includes political and macroeconomic stability, access to finance, reliable infrastructure, efficient regulation, and labor market policies that are adaptable to change. It also includes social protection systems that support workers while encouraging formal employment and and formal employment. Let me underline an essential point. A business-friendly environment is not about privileging companies over workers. It's about enabling companies to create opportunities for workers. When the environment is right, enterprises invest. And when enterprises invest, they create jobs. And when jobs are created, social development follows. This is not a zero-sum game, it's a virtuous circle. Productivity growth is a key part of this circle. Higher productivity allows enterprises to pay better wages, invest in training, and expand employment. It also plays a decisive role in reducing informality, which remains one of the greatest barriers to social development worldwide. Informality is often a symptom of weak institutions, low productivity, and limited opportunities, and it's not a policy choice. Employers are really ready to work with governments on strategies. that support formalization and create sustainable jobs. At the same time, implementation must remain realistic and balanced. Employers have expressed concern about prescriptive language in the declaration around guaranteeing living wage. Wages are influenced by productivity, economic conditions, and social dialogue, and states cannot guarantee outcomes that depend on enterprise performance. What governments can do and what employers support is to create the conditions in which enterprises grow and wages improve sustainably through dialogue between the social partners. So looking forward, one of the strengths of the Doha Declaration is it's structured follow-up, including through this commission and through regional mechanisms. And this really provides a clear entry point for stakeholders to remain engaged.

Thank you very much. for presenting a different perspective, for recognizing the important job of governments, and also for engaging with civil society. But there's still a problem from the point of view of civil society, because we're talking about the most vulnerable parts of the population. And you talk about productivity. That's where the difficulty is. How do you bring them up to the point where they have rights and they are also productive?

Both concepts go hand in hand. It's not either or, and we must protect the workers. as much as we ensure that there is an enabling environment for businesses to be able to create those jobs and then protect the workers. So for us, this is something that really goes hand in hand. And I think moving forward, we need to bring the stakeholders around the table, civil society, employers, workers, to raise awareness through multi-stakeholder panels to understand where everybody comes from. and understand each other's reality. The concept is really to protect the people, fully aligned with this, and people include the workers, people are also the entrepreneurs, people are the founders of SMEs. people are the founders of companies trying to run the companies. And if we allow a protection also of those people trying to contribute to social development, this is for us really key. Then I think a conversation needs also to happen on education and also back to the last speaker. We need to partner much more with public authorities, with education providers, with civil society, with employers to align training systems with labor market needs, particularly now as we discuss digital and green transitions. In many developing economies, employers' federations are working with governments to modernize technical and vocational education, ensuring that young people acquire skills that lead to real jobs. and not just certificates. And I think these are partnerships that can be a practical cooperation that we could use in the implementation of the Doha Declaration. And maybe a last point on partnership, I think when it comes to implementing reforms, Ultimately, the implementation will happen at local level, at national level. So it's really important that at national level, employers' organizations can be actively involved in implementing these reforms. For example, in several African and Latin American countries, employers' federations are working with governments to strengthen contemporary social security systems that are inclusive, financially sustainable, and adaptable to the local reality. So this is where I think alignment also needs to be done with the civil society actors.

I completely agree with that last point. As the only totally NGO present in the panel, I'd like to say that NGOs like local actors to lead, institutions to enable, and the private sector to bring in innovation and capital. But you're right, if we all do this in a framework of human rights and respect and dignity, and there is a power balance among the actors, then we can scale these projects to national and even to other regions, and we will be successful in those serious partnerships. Thank you very much. Okay, so we are going to now move to audience participation. And I now will invite delegations and other actors wishing to make comments and pose questions to please press your microphone button. And please keep questions and comments short to allow as many interactions as possible. Indicate to whom in the panel you're addressing the question, or perhaps it's general to the whole panel and one of the panelists will take it. I will take three speakers and then go back to the panelists for answers. The distinguished representative of Qatar has now the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank those who convened this important meeting, a meeting that shows the essence of the Doha Declaration, namely bolstering partnerships to strengthen social development at the national level. Qatar is is a leader in terms of social development. As such, it is rooted in the 2030 agenda and the strategy for social development, both of which underscore that the broadening of national practices for the eradication of poverty and for providing work need to be coupled with national strategies that address all social levels. So coordination among governance, the private sector, civil society, and other sectors, including nonprofits, need to be brought on board as well to achieve human dignity and social justice. Furthermore, in the context of clear policies and financing, it's important to achieve social solutions that can be transformed into models that can be adapted in order to strengthen social integration and to preserve the dignity of people and families. So governance and accountability are essential pillars here to ensure that efforts will be long term, especially in terms of social development. By way of conclusion, we will continue our collective action for the implementation of the Doha Declaration and our efforts to ensure a society that's more just and more equitable so no one is left behind. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished representative of Qatar. Next, we will hear from International Cooperative Alliance, followed by the distinguished delegate of the Philippines. After that, from the distinguished delegate of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Thank you very much. I think when I hear about work and labor and poverty, it seems to be a topic that doesn't come often as cooperatives. And I think there's two types of poverty. There's poverty of economics and there's poverty of hope. And I think cooperatives one of the few places that offer a solution to both. Because I think many people, even if their wages go up slightly, still have very little hope for where their future is going to be. And yet, I think, do cooperatives truly have a seat at the table? So when there's discussions about creating a better life and reducing poverty, whether in social economics or in education, How much do cooperatives really take place, to ask the panelists in general, because I think it's one of the few places that is both entrepreneurial and where ownership truly matters. I think if people have a stake in the game, they have a feel they have a stake in their future. So I guess I would pose to the panelists generally, Is it part of the general discussion? And do people realize there's over a billion members of cooperatives and 250 million employees that exist and some wonderful models?

Thank you. We will next hear from the Philippines, the distinguished delegate of the Philippines, but we'll keep your question in mind and we will answer it in a few minutes after Philippines and Syrian Arab Republic.

you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam moderator. Excellencies, distinguished panelists, colleagues, the Philippines aligns itself with the Doha political declarations call for a whole of government and whole of society approach, recognizing that commitments to end poverty, promote decent work, and advance social inclusion must be realized through effective action at the local level. In our experience, partnerships that deliver are those that empower local actors while remaining anchored in coherent national policy frameworks. The Philippines implements a 10-year national employment master plan, the Trabaho Para sa Bayan Plan or the Jobs for the Nation 2025-2034, developed through tripartite and broad multi-stakeholder consultations. This is operationalized through local workforce development plans prepared by local government units. translating national employment objectives into locally responsive and demand-driven interventions. At the frontline, public employment services office serve as integrated platforms for job matching, labor market information, skills referrals, and access to social protection. Livelihood and emergency employment programs are implemented in convergence with local development plans, supporting informal workers, cooperatives, and micro enterprises. Our experience demonstrates that employment creation and poverty reduction are most effective when national strategies are translated into locally responsive solutions, enabled by strong collaboration among government, workers, employers, civil society, and development partners with clear roles and shared accountability. In closing, the Philippines stands ready to share its experiences and work with partners in scaling partnerships that deliver tangible outcomes for people and communities. I heard the manifestations of our panelists and I truly appreciate them. And my question to the panel and our UN partners is this, how can the United Nations further support countries in connecting and scaling proven local partnership models so that successful practices can be replicated, adapted, and sustained across different national contexts? Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the distinguished delegate of the Philippines, and we will now hear from the distinguished representative of the Syrian Arab Republic. Then we'll go back to the panel to answer those questions.

Thank you, Madame Moderator. I am delivering this intervention on behalf of the Syrian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, who could not join us here in New York. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, it is a pleasure to participate in this multi-stakeholder forum, which highlights the essential role of partnership in translating the commitment of the Doha Political Declaration into concrete action at the local level. For Syria, partnerships are not complementary to reform. They are fundamental for delivering inclusive and resilient social development. At the heart of this reform agenda is the development of Syria's universal national cash transfer program, a flagship initiative designed as a platform for partnership between government institutions, international organizations, civil society, local actors, and private sectors. From its inception, the program has been shaped through close collaboration with development partners, combining global technical expertise with national leadership and local implementation capacity. This partnership approach has enabled the program to integrate evidence-based targeting digital system, shock responsive features, and strong accountability mechanisms while ensuring alignment with national priorities. In parallel, the universal cash transfer program is ambitious and closely linked with complementary initiatives, including nutrition sensitive social protection, employment programs, and skills development implemented in partnership with international agencies and local stakeholders. This integrated approach is enabling households not only to meet basic needs, but also to build pathways toward livelihood and social inclusion. Looking ahead, scaling up this national program requires sustained and innovative partnerships. In the context of declining traditional development assistance and a limited pool of available funding, countries in post-conflict and reconstruction phases such as Syria face significant challenges in mobilizing adequate resources for social development and social protection reforms. As reaffirmed in Doha, whole of government and whole of society approaches are essential to deliver results at scale. In this regard, we believe that there is a need for designing sustainable and innovative financing models that can help governments and partners in their pursuit to scale up nationally led programs such as cash transfer systems while ensuring a long-term predictability, accountability, and national ownership. Thank you, madam.

We thank the distinguished delegate of the Syrian Arab Republic. We will now answer the questions. So I'm coming back to the panelists for the questions from the cooperatives. Stephanie has offered to respond to that one. And I'm looking for volunteers to answer the Philippines question of UN scaling up projects from the member states. and someone to answer Syria and its post-conflict environment reconstruction, how to design financing models and scale them up. So they are similar, but one is in a post-conflict environment. So I will listen to the answers from the panelists, and then we will call Malawi Children, Youth International and Dominican Republic.

On the cooperative question, I think we need to appreciate the diversity of the private sector and the different roles that each of the entities can have. We tend to put the private sector in a basket, but actually we're talking about large multinationals, small and medium-sized enterprises, employers' federations, business associations, And I think cooperatives are also part of that basket. And each one of these actors have a different role to play as part of the implementation. It can be financing, but it can be policy guidance, it can be partnership on Again, raising that voice that we don't hear, and I agree, we don't have the cooperatives part of the conversations, and we would need them. I think it's a matter of how to organize them to make sure that they have a seat at the table. From our side, we really are organized with employers' federations at national level, which represents also SMEs in their own national context. We do partner with bigger corporations, but I think for us, bottom line is really to make sure that we protect and we encourage SMEs to be able to continue create that social or contribute to the social development. I would not want to respond to the UN question, but my five cents really is that what we would like from the employer's perspective on the UN is really to have alignment on the various topics we're talking about because we're talking the political declaration encompasses really a lot of themes which will include many UN agencies. So for us, it's really about making sure that there's alignment and the convening power that the UN agencies may have and to bring all the stakeholders together to have those conversations at global level.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Stephanie. Is there anybody that would like to say something else about the UN role in scaling up projects? Yes, Olena.

I would like to add that When we speak about SDGs in general, we always say it's not a menu, it's a set. And here is the same. I think that we have to have all the stakeholders at the table, like today and on all other events, where they can share best practices. And then we should also bring it, so this is the role of education, when we translate it into the local languages, into local communities, into all other actors, Because sometimes there is a gap between what we speak here as a policy and then how people understand it, how the local actors understand it. And I think that, first of all, we need to have these best practices, we share it, and then we need to translate it into local languages, but not only languages, yet to bring this understanding to the table. And then there is a sense of ownership. So they have to be not beneficiaries, but co-creators of the solutions of the local level. And then it works on the local dimension. Thank you.

The next question is really about designing financing models to scale up local projects from the Syrian Arab Republic. Would someone like to take that? Any of the speakers? We are really talking about, in a way, financing for development, but also bringing private capital in. As you know, the Sevilla commitment is central to the Doha declaration. We are looking for a new financial architecture for the international development banks to do more and attract also private capital. Do you have anything to add?

I think also we should also try to, you know, looking beyond the ODA and trying to also try to find capital inside of a country, again, by creating opportunities, by investment, but potentially also from the inside. In countries of crisis, I mean, we do have also a private sector which is trying to recover, with companies trying to operate, again, in fragile context. And I think it's also about how to make sure that this private sector context can boom again. to make sure that wealth and growth comes from the inside and not always from outside.

Thank you. That would imply mobilizing resources within national boundaries, but it's also related to taxation and to more regulatory power. But we're almost out of time, so I'd like to call on Malawi to make the next the next intervention. Please keep them short. And if you have a question, please also keep it concise and focused. Malawi first, then children and youth, then Dominican Republic.

Thank you, Chair, moderator, ladies and gentlemen. Malawi aligns ourself with objectives with the Doha political declaration, which underscore the agency of pursuing a whole government. and a whole of society approach for addressing the challenges of eradicating poverty, promoting decent work for all, and fostering social inclusion. I'm glad to report to this House that Malawi is making steady progress towards poverty eradication, job creation, and inclusive growth through two national policy frameworks, namely the Malawi Agenda 2063 and the National Export Strategy Number 2. In particular, these policies have been translated into action through inclusive programmes, number one, Transforming Agriculture through Diversification Trade Program, Financial Access for Rural Market Smallholders and Enterprise Project, FARMSE Project, Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling Project, FINES, and the fourth one is a government-led financing program known as the National Economic Empowerment Fund, NEEF. At the regional level, Malawi is leveraging trade frameworks under COMESA and SADC, but also the Continental Free Trade Area, by providing training to small-scale businesses. Malawi is also providing targeted learning platforms and preferential procurement policies to women and youth-led MSMEs. At the community level, savings and loan groups have expanded to include women, youth and persons with disabilities. Malawi government undertakes to support all these financial initiatives by providing formal training in business and enterprise management. In addition, in Malawi, there is public private dialogue forum, which is coordinated by government and private sector, bringing together key stakeholders that identify challenges affecting the business environment and developing homegrown solutions to the same. Chairperson, I'm happy to report that the above initiatives have improved access to formal financial services for women from 39% to over 70% in five years. Access to markets for women, youth, and persons with disabilities has also been improved. Simplified trade regimes have enabled greater participation of women in regional trade, while women partner support has strengthened skills and market linkages. However, despite this progress, Malawi continues to face challenges, including limited access to affordable finance, climate shocks, infrastructure gaps, and persistent barriers to market. In light of these challenges, I have two questions to the panel. The first one is that, how does the UN system and the member states support low-income countries like Malawi who are facing challenges in terms of financing for the climate shocks as well as infrastructure gaps? And in particular, the second question goes to China. I would like to find out if there are opportunities for China to build capacity of low-income countries like Malawi in terms of value addition, technology transfer, but also how to implement startup initiatives to help women and the youth engage in entrepreneurship, but also in businesses. Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to the distinguished representative of Malawi. We will now hear from children and youth. Please remember to be concise. We're running out of time.

Thank you, Madam Moderator, Chair, dearest Excellencies, and our esteemed panelists. My name is Alankrita Deol, and I speak on behalf of Children and Youth International. Last year, as the major group for children and youth, my team and I drove forward a youth mobilization journey globally at the Second World Summit for Social Development in Doha, bringing together thousands of young people and youth-led organizations, particularly from the grassroots and the global to advocate for a more inclusive, more just approach to social development. At the WSSD2 Youth Assembly in Qatar, children and young people called for actionable commitments and accountability for targeted investments in universal health care and coverage, reshaping the care economy, and decent and dignified work for all. We pressed the importance of strong global solidarity and upholding the consensus of Cairo, Beijing, and Copenhagen. Crucially, we also emphasized the importance of building new and equitable partnerships with young people from global youth constituencies to grassroots youth organizations at the front lines of social action. So today, I wanted to ask the panelists a question. How can the current policy and financing mechanisms be held accountable to ensure that local and multi-stakeholder partnerships, especially youth-led and intergenerational partnerships, deliver measurable outcomes on poverty reduction, job creation, social inclusion. I have witnessed firsthand how young people, especially those in fragile or low resource settings and those experiencing inclusion, exclusion and marginalization, face barriers that no single sector can solve alone. But when we put people first, building systems of support around individuals and communities, and when governments, civil society and youth collaborate together as equal partners, outcomes do improve. So to scale these collaborations and foster a space for partnership, we have three three key recommendations that I'll close with. One, on scaling local innovation, we call for predictable, sustained financing for local and youth-led solutions, enabling them to be embedded and taken to scale. Creating impact means trusting communities with resources rather than just asking them for ideas. And two, on financing for impact, we call for formal frameworks that institutionalize partnerships with youth and affected communities, empowering them to become co-designers of national social policies and inclusion strategies, including the financial decisions that underpin them. And lastly, three, on accountability, we call for strong multi-stakeholder accountability structures to monitor progress against our commitments. This includes strengthening the role of youth, civil society, and rights holders in the Commission of Social Development as a space for annual accountability and ensuring real co-creation, rather than just token consultation in the five-year WSSD II follow-up process. I thank you.

I thank Children and Youth International. We're now going to the last speaker in the list, Dominican Republic, and we're running out of time, as I said before. After that, we will go for a rapid fire conclusion from the panelists, a very rapid conclusion by the moderator, because we have to move on, and then The Chair will take care of introducing the next panel. Dominican Republic, you now have the floor.

Thank you.

Gracias, moderadora.

Thank you, moderator. When we talk about partnerships that really are transformative and can help scale good practices from the local level, we need to look at the experiences that connect communities, the state, the private sector, and civil society with a common purpose, that is to say, protecting human dignity and generating real inclusion. In the case of the population of older adults, this is particularly relevant because ageing is profoundly linked to poverty, labour informality, economic dependence, inclusion and social exclusion. In the Dominican Republic, we have seen how these partnerships can take the form of tangible results. For example, the National Council for Older Persons has developed initiatives together with the private sector, international entities, and social organizations to improve the quality of care given to older persons. And a significant experience that we've had is the project for improving conditions in residents' homes that was driven forward by a public partnership with support from the UNFPA and the participation of the private sector, specifically an association of pensioners. And this made it possible to acquire centers for equipment within care facilities for older persons. And these actions are supplemented by the joint work of NGOs that are signed up to the CONAPE, more than 100 institutions that support this joint work, as well as community networks to expand the coverage of services and programmes, and that includes educational initiatives and social inclusion initiatives that make the most of their local nature to be able to reach older adults in a vulnerable situation. At the same time, policies such as home care policies that have been developed together with other social programmes have made it possible for many older persons to remain in their communities with paid support, thus strengthening the care economy and creating local jobs. This sort of coordination reflects the spirit of the Doha Declaration, with a person-centered approach throughout the life cycle, where partnerships make it possible for local solutions to become sustainable and inclusive policies. also reminds us that older persons not only need social protection, but they also need opportunities so that they can keep participating, contributing and being an active part of the development of their communities. And my question for the panelists would be, given experiences in which the public, private sector and community organizations have worked together to improve quality of life for older persons at the local level, what conditions would you consider to be essential for these partnerships to be able to be scaled up sustainably so that they can become public policies that reduce poverty and promote truly inclusive societies throughout the life cycle. Thank you.

I thank the Dominican Republic distinguished delegate. And we are now in the final round of panelists. conclusions, but I will first call on Mr. Mo from the People's Republic of China, and then Colombia, Minister Sanguino, then Olena, no, then Shelley, I'm sorry, I can't see you, Olena, and you will have the final word, Stephanie.

Thank you, moderator. I would like to thank Malawi for this question. For China, we have four approaches. First, to learn. As a matter of fact, we first learned from Bangladesh for small loans. At first, the amount is around 3,000 to 5,000 yuan. It's a very small amount. However, we want to learn the concept. Second, we learned, we find the approach through errors, meaning that we need to survive. Third, is to improve. which is through this whole process, we found the best approach and to keep improving it. For example, right now, the personal loan can reach 300,000, but at first, it's only 3,000. Four is to institutionalize it. During this process, we have relevant institutions to do this work. At the same time, we are building the ecosystem. that include training, training the experts, including legal services. All those provide assistance during this process. And for three times, we have implemented such approach in the Jiangxi province. Jiangxi province has the best experience in terms of microloans. And thank you. That's what I like to share.

I thank Mr. Mo and we move on to Mr. Sanguino.

Several.

Speakers stressed and asked about the need for cooperation, for partnerships, public private partnerships, the link with the private sector, and how national governments work together with local governments, as well as the presence of international cooperation. But the Doha Declaration and the spirit of that declaration will only be achieved if there is leadership on the part of governments. And that's what we've understood within the government of Colombia. Leadership that brings change. in terms of economic policy and wage policy. And that's why we introduced the living wage concept from the ILO, which allows for minimum living standards for workers and their families, that improves incomes and that reduces monetary policy by thus generating a positive cycle, positive momentum within the economy of more and better paid jobs. But that's also not enough. There's also multidimensional poverty. And so that requires the leadership of the government to introduce other reforms and actions at the national level and at the local level. With the use of social dialogue, of course. But also leadership from the government. And in the case of Colombia, addressing multidimensional poverty and reducing inequalities together with labor policies means that we've been able to launch the pension reform to ensure that people can grow old in dignified conditions universally. There's also the healthcare reform that ensures better healthcare conditions and guarantees the fundamental right of Colombians to health, educational reforms that improve access to public education for children, adolescents, starting from preschool and school education right the way up to higher education. And then also agrarian reform, which is about reducing poverty in the rural context and thus improving and ensuring food security and agricultural production and rural development. Colombia also has been the stage of almost constant political violence and violence of all sorts over the last five decades. Now, we have a program with 117 municipalities resulting from the 2016 peace agreement, we have these territorially focused development programs in those localities. All that to say that integrated, comprehensive, all-encompassing action by state and society is required with, of course, clear leadership by governments.

Thank you very much, Minister Sanguino. We'll move on to Ms. Shelley Nordheim-Golan for final conclusion.

The employment social work model is driven by the innovative practice of social work, which bridges the gap between social welfare and the labor market. Our core philosophy, we advance We advocate for a professional synergy where the integration of vulnerable population is a strategic economic asset for employers rather than a favor. To ensure sustainable and diverse employment, our model operates across several systematic layers. market driven expertise, identifying specific employer needs to ensure an optimal match between the candidate skills and the organization's goals. From placement to partnerships, we utilize continuous dialogue with business sector, facilitating a unique solution such as skill training and professional mentoring. Diversity As a value, we promote the concept of social engagement, helping employers realize the tangible benefits of our diverse workforce, which fosters innovation and a healthier organizational climate.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Olena, you now have the floor.

Thank you. So thank you very much, all the panelists and questions. I think this proves how listening is important in any case. Of course, for partnerships that ensure that no one is left behind, every actor has to play his role. Government, national governments, local authority, business, NGOs, universities. I would like to highlight a few key insights. First of all, everything we design on all levels has to be people-centered. Then we have to involve all the actors so that they are not beneficiaries, but co-creators, and they have the sense of ownership. And then any project has chances to become successful. And the third thing I would like to highlight again is that education is not only a traditional means of educating young people, but education means to educate all the actors regarding their roles, to translate their responsibilities and to buy the shared responsibility all together. Sometimes it means that we have to put all the actors around one table and to place the question on the table. Sometimes it's to translate the policy into the language they understand. And sometimes it's to create a project together so that everyone bears his share of responsibility. And I think that in that in that case when we translate what is needed from every actor, we have a chance to create sustainable projects on national and local levels. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And now for the last speaker, Stephanie Winnett.

Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on Mr. Sanguino's words about the leadership of governments. I think that's key, and we all agree that only governments hold the pen when it comes to policymaking. And reforms to be successful will need to work for all. So that's where social dialogue is so important, so that the stakeholders involved with the policy reforms can be consulted. And that's specifically important when it comes to the wage policies, which touches on employers, on workers. Maybe my really last word, I will give it to Nelson Mandela and his quote. where I think we should all put a thought to it, which is related to education. And he said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." And I think we should all invest more time and resources in education.

Thank you very much. Yes, we listen, we educate, we co-create, we engage, we deliver. Thank you very much. I will say a few words for closing, and then I will make an announcement. So we've heard so many different perspectives. Of course, governments are strong. They are the policymakers, but they listen. The governments that are here today have listened and they have delivered. And all these perspectives have been successful because they have people at the center. If we're serious about ending poverty, creating decent work and building inclusive societies, Partnerships must continue. They must be intentional, balanced, and impact driver driven. Sorry. The message is clear. When financial capital is aligned with social capital and regulatory authority and shared responsibilities, partnerships deliver. This is how we can give practical expression to the spirits of both Copenhagen and Doha with partnerships that deliver And scaling poverty reduction is not about copying projects, it's about strengthening systems and structures that work for the people. I thank everybody. I thank the distinguished panelists for a very robust discussion. Finally, it came together. And I do have an announcement to make. The discussion of this forum will be reflected in the chair summary. and be part of the inputs to ECOSOC and its high-level segment, as well as the 2026 High-Level Political Panel, the HLPF Forum, I'm sorry, High-Level Political Forum. It's been a long thinking exercise for me. I now give the floor to our chair.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, we have reached the end of this really interesting multi-stakeholder forum on the priority theme segment one. And I thank Ms. Fernella Oeningen for guiding our discussion very professionally. I also thank our panelists and delegations for the participation and contribution. We will now have a brief pause to allow the podium to be rearranged for the next segment of multi-stakeholder forum. Please remain seated. Switch it on and Excellencies, distinguished delegates, it is my pleasure to welcome you to segment two of the Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Partnerships and Financing Models that Enable Scale-Up. I am pleased to welcome the distinguished panelists for our Multi-Stakeholder Forum segment two. Mr. Nicolas Roguet, Director of the Integration and Citizenship Division at the Department of Social Cohesion and Solidarity in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. Ms. Yanset Guven, Family and Social Services Expert at the Ministry of Family and Social Services of Turkey. Ms. Amy Nyong, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Africa Institute, Global Studies University. Ms. Fabiola Motta, General Manager at the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives, and Mr. Howard Brodsky, Co-Founder and Chairman of the CAA Global Partners. I'm also pleased to welcome the moderator, Mr. Jeroen Douglas, Director General of the International Cooperatives Alliance, ICA. Mr. Douglas, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And excellencies, distinguished delegates, and also friends, it's my great honor to be moderating today this second segment of our multi-stakeholder forum. I will first make some introductory statements, then give the floor to all the other speakers. We will then have, of course, dialogue with all the distinguished representatives here in the room gathered for this important topic. As said, my name is Jeroen Douglas, Director General of the International Cooperative Alliance. So the ICA or International Cooperative Alliance serves as the global umbrella for all the cooperatives worldwide. We do unite some 3 million cooperatives across various sectors, eight or nine. We are entering now also with renewable energy. We represent 285 million decent jobs in 164 countries with over 1 billion members. Indeed, if you would sum up the collective weight of our economies, it would justify a seat at the G7. So the Doha Political Declaration, which we are reflecting on today, is not just another document. It's a people's plan. It explicitly recognizes what the cooperative movement has known for nearly two centuries, that social justice and poverty eradication are only achievable through a whole of society approach. Critically, the Doha Declaration that came out of this second World Social Summit, and also the Seville Commitments, highlight social and solidarity economy and their co-ops as essential actors. For the first time, global political will has caught up to cooperative reality. We are no longer on the fringes. We are recognized as a primary engine for resilient, community-rooted economic growth. I have a slide that I wanted to share with you, if it's possible, technician, only one, yes, thank you, that's the slide, and this is a remarkable summary of when we were present at the closing act of the International Year of Cooperatives 2025, a wonderful gift of the United Nations, by the way. We were there to summarize the resolution, the outcome of the Second World Social Summit. And what is truly amazing is that if you look to these 15 targets, They seem to be the design of the new post SDG era. Together with the outcome of the climate meeting COP, the COP in Brazil, we will add two or three others and then you will see how the new global agenda would look like. This session is about access to capital. It's lightened up here in green. At the end of the day.

It's.

The driving engine for all the other items that are deemed to become the new agenda of our multilateral work. So I just wanted to show you this slide. The slide is available. It's our summary, and it's a staggering overlap with the work the cooperatives are doing worldwide. So it really feels as our work. You can bring the slide down again. Thank you. So as we are talking about cooperative finance, let me just tell you a few of the solutions that can be relevant. Partnership and financial models are the enablers to scale up, to scale up inclusive development. At the International Cooperative Alliance, we are championing a shift from traditional aid towards a model of investment in resilience. And I have a few examples for you. Reaching the last mile. In partnership with credit unions, we are venturing into the most remote regions, providing essential financial services to rural and also underserved urban areas. The SACCOs, the so-called saving and credit cooperative organizations, are well-established forces in Africa, with over 50 million members and a total asset exceeding 20 billion US dollars. Driving impact capital, a second component, where cooperatives play an important role as impact platforms, such as Oikocredits and others. They deliver investment capital to remote businesses that typically struggle to access funding. We've already seen significant successes with these models across sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. In 2024, 22 billion United States dollars in impact investment reached the last mile as part of an overall $97 billion foreign investment volume. And more importantly, it represents a growth rate of 21% over the last five years. Thirdly, accessing global financial markets Cooperatives are jointly working to launch Co-op Exchange, a pioneering innovative platform which enables cooperatives to tap into global capital markets and list on stock exchanges. Discussions are already underway with NASDAQ. Crucially, it would allow for the influx of market capital without jeopardizing the cooperative principles. We achieve this through targeted changes to the articles of association of cooperatives ensure an external capital never exceeds 49% and remains without voting rights. Fourthly, creating a home for global capital. There's an estimated 40 trillion within the co-op and mutual sector that looks for a viable outlet. By creating regulated liquid instruments, we provide global capital with a home that is safe, ethical, and productive while maintaining member-owned identities. Lastly, de-risking and patient capital. We are still seeing a surge in models where multilateral development banks play a de-risking role, clearing the path for private capital to flow into local cooperatives. This addresses the growing demand for patient capital and long-term commitment, values that are at the core inherently cooperative. This accounts for the remaining $65 billion I've mentioned. So it's in this smart mix that we can offer very good, I would say, post-ODA financial tools to regions and sectors that need it. With this introduction, I can now start introducing the panel based on our guiding question, how can we ensure promises made are promises kept? Accountability is a two-way street. Governments must provide enabling legal environments And we must provide transparent, scalable investment vehicles. To explore this, we have a distinguished panel. Mr. Nicolas Roguet from Switzerland will focus on social cohesion and the dignity of work, for instance. Ms. Canset Guven will share national strategies for labor and social assistance. Ms. Amy Nyang providing a vital research perspective from Africa. And last but not least, Ms. Fabiola da Silva Motta and Mr. Howard Brodsky will represent the immense power of cooperative system in Brazil and even here also in the United States. Let us begin our discussion on how to turn the Doha vision into a well-funded, community-driven reality. So I'm happy now to pass the floor to Nicolas Roget.

Chair, moderator, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by thanking all of the delegations and United Nations team for their work in the run-up to this session of the Commission. The framework and the recommendations that you've made as the basis for our discussion are absolutely vital to establish effective public policies on the ground. The diversification of financing is a necessity, but it's also a major challenge, one that we need to face, and at all levels. Co-financing from the private sector is necessary. in order to implement social projects at a time of dwindling public resources. This increase in the power of private foundation needs to be done in coordination and cooperation with private sector stakeholders so as not to sap the public sector. In other words, we need to put in place a genuine cooperative system in Geneva. this increase in private financing, in particular with one major foundation, was considered to be useful. Today it's become absolutely necessary. The capacity to take risks, to react quickly, and to innovate is something that needs to be ensured in combination with the public sector. And we have the responsibility to put into effect permanent, stable, long-lasting policies and to be transparent about the use of public funds. This new dynamic is not easy to set up. The definition of the roles and responsibilities needs to happen in a spirit of permanent, close dialogue. The complex situation that we are all in should not lead us to forget our capacity to explain what we're doing. All of us in this hall are fully aware of the importance of the policies that we're in charge of. All of us are putting a great deal of energy into explaining, justifying, demonstrating, and evaluating. At the same time, it seems that it still falls short because there's a distrust in public policy that still exists, and they're being called into question at every turn. One example, the OECD recently published a study. It had to do with the measures to integrate persons that are immigrants in Switzerland. The results are very strong. The rate of employment of those who have come from asylum and are refugees is higher than the main destination countries. More broadly speaking, immigrants in Switzerland have a employment rate of 77%, and that's largely above OECD levels. Objectively, this policy is working and it's yielding positive results, in particular from the economic standpoint. And yet, these integration and inclusion policies are always subject to debate and they're always being called into question. The response to this need to explain, to show transparency, requires new avenues to be traveled. It requires work on the ground and by public policy workers on two different levels, addressing the political and institutional framework. And professionals on the ground are not adequately trained on this regard, and they're not drawing enough of a link between their practice and the various scales, various levels of social policy. Putting their work into a broader context would allow them to make more visible and explain the political and social policies they're putting into effect and allow for synergy with other public policy areas like employment, training, or health. Working in silos, and this was mentioned in the last few days a lot, unfortunately remains the norm. And we're having difficulty in creating a dynamic for cooperation among our areas of expertise. This fact is always reiterated, but it's difficult to overcome it. Political and social policies need to respond to the rapid changes in current society. For that to happen, it's important to involve the beneficiaries of these policies, and that was mentioned a lot in the last few days too. And the challenges of participation need to be put at the forefront of these policies. It's important to move as the phrase nothing about us without us should apply and that's the first stage and it's a necessary but not it's an essential but not a necessary precondition we need to move toward participation we need to create genuine technicians genuine conditions rather for participation and this requires horizontality among the various stakeholders. This also means working on the challenges of accessibility and addressing discrimination. These are issues that are all too present still, and they constitute barriers to the participation that many people want to see, including those in this hall. In Geneva, we have an opportunity to see many associations active in public policy. They're playing an extremely important role in terms of the local economic fabric, in particular in their ability to develop good practices for inclusion and their ability to impact the social agenda. These structures are particularly recognized and supported by the local governmental organizations, especially through public funds. More than the traditional economic actors, it is above all the public sector that needs to ensure that the gaps are filled. I will close by emphasizing the fact that from my viewpoint, the goals of the Second World Summit of Social Development are the basis of our contemporary societies. If these foundations are not strengthened at every turn, both internationally and locally, then they will weaken and then the roof of the entire edifice will collapse. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roget, for your very insightful presentation. Nothing about us without us was a good translation, I have to say. And the horizontality to get out of the silos is precisely how inclusive finance should look like. And it looks like you're doing a great job in Geneva. We're now moving to our second presenter. Ms. Canset Guven. She will talk about national strategies for labor and social assistance from a Turkish perspective. So the floor is yours.

Distinguished Madam Chair and distinguished participants, it's a pleasure to present Turkey's social protection model focused on women's empowerment and social inclusion. This model is designed to address poverty, strengthen social cohesion, and promote inclusive development through integrated and people-centered policies. Turkey's approach to poverty alleviation is grounded in the principle of leaving no one behind and is closely aligned with the SDGs. Our mission is to empower vulnerable populations through comprehensive social protection mechanisms with a strong focus on breaking intergenerational poverty. This is achieved through an integrated service delivery model that brings together central government, local authorities, civil society, and the private sector. At the core of this model are local service units operating across the country. Currently, 1,003 local units function in all 81 provinces and 922 districts. This structure allows services and cash-based assistance to reach beneficiaries efficiently and transparently. As a result, over 4.5 million households are reached annually with a 96% success rate in cash transfers. Women's empowerment is a central pillar of Turkey's social protection framework. Family Support Centers, known as ADAMS, focus on enhancing women's social and economic participation. Social Solidarity Centers, or SODAMS, operate primarily in high-migration areas, promoting social integration and cohesion of the Roma population. These centers provide skills training, psychosocial support, and pathways to employment, enabling women to become active agents of change in their communities. Another key component of the model is the national home care program for elderly and disabled citizens. The program ensures that individuals can live with dignity in their own houses while receiving essential care services. Services include home-based personal care, household support, and daily hot meal delivery. At the same time, the program contributes to local employment and strengthens community-based care systems. Turkey's experience offers some important lessons for scaling social development. First, multi-stakeholder coordination is essential for delivering effective and sustainable results. Second, digital systems such as the integrated social assistance information system play a crucial role in coordination and data-driven policymaking. Finally, empowering women and investing in community-based care strengthens families, builds resilience, and enhances social inclusion. In conclusion, Turkey's social protection model demonstrates how integrated, inclusive, and locally grounded policies can achieve national impact. By emphasizing women's empowerment, dignified care, and coordinated service delivery, the model contributes to more resilient and inclusive societies. Thank you for your attention.

Ms. Canset Guven, that is a really inspiring reality you present, those SODAN centers where women really are the key change agents, reaching throughout all the communities offering the last mile for social inclusion on care and really build stronger communities. We from the cooperative movement are very attracted to that experience. Thank you so much. And I would now like to give the floor to Miss Amy Nyang, who will provide a vital research perspective from your continent in Africa. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, distinguished delegates, colleagues, let me address the guiding questions through three interconnected arguments grounded in African scholarship and practice. The Doha declarations call for whole of government and whole society approaches can only be effective where we are able to build the architecture of claim making through legal entrenchment, participatory budgeting, transnational solidarity, and epistemic justice. First, the Doha Declaration's call for bold, people-centered, and integrated policies requires, first and foremost, re-appropriating indigeneity local innovations that reduce poverty and not technocratic fixes imposed from above. A transformative social policy needs to be able to simultaneously redistribute resources, protect against shocks, and enhance productive capacity. In this context, I'd like to argue that the so-called informal economy is the foundation and it's not the problem. conventional take is to formalize informal economy to expand social protection. Our proposition is that the informal economy already contains sophisticated social protection systems. The policy task is not formalization, but interface connecting local mutualism with statutory systems. without eroding local autonomy. A good example related to this is the Idir Mutual Association in Ethiopia. These are local funeral societies that have evolved into comprehensive social protection systems, providing credit, healthcare and emergency support as well. They are not informal safety nets to be formalized by external actors. They are proto social protection systems rooted in principles of reciprocal obligation. My second argument is for re-imagining accountability. The political economy research conducted by the effective states and inclusive Development Research Center, ESD, across eight African countries reveals a very troubling paradox. It is that social protection has expanded in coverage, but remains politically fragile. When fiscal crisis hit, as was the case in Zambia between 2015 and 2021, programs are first on the chopping block, not because they lack in effectiveness, but because they lack powerful domestic constituencies. This brings me to a critical distinction that needs to be made between accountability as compliance and accountability as claim making. The former refers to vertical chains of reporting to donors and upward central ministries, and it tends to be the dominant discourse. The latter refers to horizontal and diagonal mechanisms where citizens can exercise rights. It is what transforms social policy from charity to entitlement. From a transformative social policy perspective, we must reject frameworks where beneficiaries are target populations to be managed and instead recognize them as rights holders with a degree of agency, if you want. And I would like to propose three mechanisms for how one may go about operationalizing this. The first one is through constitutional and legal entrenchment. The African Union Social Policy Framework for Africa of 2008 and Agenda 2063 both emphasize translating constitutional rights into statutory entitlements. Yet, as the ILO's 2021-2025 Africa Regional Social Strategy notes, Most African programs remain executive decrees rather than legislated rights. And here, it's a very crucial distinction to be made. Legal entrenchment creates veto players, namely courts, parliamentary committees, and social movement who can block re-entrenchment. Ghana's National Health Insurance Act of 2003 and Rwanda's social protection legal framework demonstrate when rights are codified, programs can and do survive government transitions. Second is through social accountability platforms. The Open Government Partnership model in Africa, which now comprises 25 African countries, demonstrate that transparency without participation is insufficient. The OGP requires not just disclosure of budget information, but the co-creation of action plans with civil society as well. In Tanzania, the example of the Tuaweza initiative combines citizen monitoring of service delivery with media amplification. There is greater possibility of diagonal accountability where local claims gain national visibility. However, as the political economy literature warns, these mechanisms must be embedded in electoral incentives. Citizens must be able to punish or reward governments based on social policy performance. The third one is through transnational solidarity mechanisms. The question of accountability from home to home must include global accountability. The Doha Declarations call for multilateral development banks to prioritize Social development requires institutionalized voice from the South in governance structures. The African Development Bank's recent reforms to include civil society and also have community engagement frameworks are good steps forward, but they remain insufficient. In conclusion, Most of the research coming from the African political economy research tends to refuse to make separation between technical policy design from power relations, historical context, and epistemic justice. And as I say this, I have in mind a caution made by Sam Moyo in the context of agrarian reform, namely that we distribution without transformation tends to reproduce inequality. Social protection that merely palliates poverty while leaving extractive structures intact, namely land grabbing, illicit financial flows, corporate tax avoidance, will face crisis when fiscal constraints bite. I thank you.

Thank you. That was just on time, Ms. Amy Nyang. And thank you so much for your discourse on research, on your political economy with the different layers. Quite interesting. There's many things that you've mentioned, your three mechanisms on legal entrenchment, on social accountability platforms, and also international solidarity mechanisms fitting into strengthening informal economy. rather than making them formal. We should need governments that really empower informal economies in community structures, if I understand it well. That is very helpful for this debate. It's also about how to build local community stronger. And that is a nice bridge to the story Ms. Fabiola da Silva Mota will tell from Brazil I know from nearby what they are doing, and it's great to hear the story of the Brazilian cooperative system. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair, Director General, distinguished panelists, cooperative members, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. at this session of the Commission for Social Development. It is an honor for the Brazilian corporate movement and the organization of Brazilian cooperatives to participate as the world searches for solutions to end poverty. create jobs, and rebuild trust at the local level. And when we talk about financing for social development, it is easy to stay in the realm of big numbers and global debates. But in Brazil, what this looks like in practice is much more concrete. It is the difference between a small entrepreneur being able to keep a business open, a rural producer having access to credit at the right time, and the family being served in the municipality where they actually live in the countryside. So the message the Brazilian Co-op movement wants to share today is to scale local solutions that fight poverty and create jobs, we need financing models rooted in communities. And credit unions are the most effective way to achieve this. And in order to do what we need, we do need support and recognition from the government and legislators. Over the past decade, Brazil's credit unions have expanded rapidly. In 2014, they had 7.5 million members and 110 billion in assets. Today, they serve more than 20 million members in Brazil, operate over 10,000 service units, and manage around 885 billion billion reais in assets, and they are the only financial institution present in 469 municipalities. This reach is not just a statistic, but it's a powerful development tool. Credit unions are key financial intermediates for the MSMEs, supporting job creation and local income generation. They serve rural producers and help strengthen family farming, supporting productive inclusion and food systems in territories that often face limited access to credit and technical support. Because they are member owned and locally rooted, credit unions keep resources circulating in their communities, supporting local value chains and economic resilience. In short, they are community-based financing platforms for social development. But this scale that I'm talking about, it didn't happen automatically. In Brazil, our experience shows that cooperative finance grows with government partnership that creates pathways for cooperatives to operate, innovate, and contribute to public priorities. This depends on unified political representation, so cooperative solutions are visible and incorporated into policy decisions. In Brazil, this unified representation is organized through the OCB, which coordinates dialogue with public authorities and helps shape an enabling environment for sustainable growth. That political representation is translated into reforms that make this expansion and stability possible for our credit unions. So for the credit unions in Brazil, this include the 2009 credit union law that established the legal foundations of the national cooperative system in Brazil. It also accomplished the creation of the Credit Unions Guarantee Fund in 2014, the authorization in 2018 for municipalities to place resources within credit unions, and the inclusion of the Cooperative Act in 2014, 2024 tax reform to ensure adequate treatment of transactions between cooperatives and their members. So these are concrete examples of public-private partnerships that deliver through policy frameworks that unlock scale, build on regulatory dialogue, and a practical understanding of how cooperatives operate locally. These are examples that public-private partnerships can indeed change realities. The 2009 legislation was a turning point for the credit union's development. Prior to that, they had no support from the regulator and had limitations to services they could provide their members. After the legislation that took years of debate and improvement in Parliament, credit unions grew exponentially. Scaling up cooperatives also makes it easy to access resource from multilateral and national development banks because stronger cooperative systems can channel finance down the line to those who need the most. A clear example is the partnership between Brazilian credit unions and the Brazilian Development Bank. Between 2023 and 2025, the Brazilian Development Bank approved 96 billion reais for green financing, and 73% of these operations were carried out through cooperative banks and credit unions. This shows how cooperative networks can channel development finance to local enterprises and producers, including those hardest to reach through traditional financing. These experiences carries a broader lesson. If governments want more resources to reach the local level, especially when official development assistance is constrained, they should treat community-rooted cooperative finance as a part of their national financing toolkit strategy. They can scale what works by creating clear and stable legal frameworks for cooperative finance, partnering with cooperatives to expand inclusion in underserved territories where they may be the only financial provider, and using public policy to crowd in local finance through safeguards and municipal pathways. At the same time, cooperatives themselves must invest in political representation because without it, their solutions will not decision makers at the required scale. In Brazil, one expression of this engagement is our cross-party caucus called Francop, with hundreds of parliamentarians committed to the cooperative agenda. Strengthening cooperatives depends on a political environment that understands and respects the unique characteristics of our model. To help build that understanding and mobilize cooperative members, we develop a political education program, promoting continuous engagement in long-term political action amongst Brazilian cooperatives. To conclude, Brazil's experiences show something very simple. Cooperatives deliver investment and financial inclusion where it matters the most, on the ground. Credit credit unions, support MSMEs, rural producers, and family farming. And scaling these results depends on government partnership and strong legitimate political representation so that the cooperative model is treated not as an exception, but as a strategic instrument for local development. Thank you.

And thank you so much, Ms. Fabiola Mota. What you have just told is probably the best in class story we can think of, where we see a perfect storm in a positive way, where community owners, community builders, together with financiers and regulators are truly creating a systems change towards a deep capillarity reaching out to the forest regions and the last miles. So I want to congratulate you with this wonderful work that you're doing. And I know it's still more to come, but it's a fantastic story. Thank you so much. And we stay within the cooperative world by moving to our last speaker, Mr. Howard Brodsky. Your story is interesting in itself. And it has a lot of connectivity with what we've heard so far. So the floor is yours, please.

Thank you, Chairman. It's certainly an honor to be with you today and talk about this at a very vital time in our economy. If we just look in the last 10 years, it's so interesting with inequality. The 10 largest corporations in the world grew by 600%. that's they grew to $127 trillion. The 10 richest people in the world grew their wealth by 400% to 2.3 trillion, just the 10. So today, the top five richest people in the world have more wealth than half the world's population. That inequality cannot continue. And I want to begin by just telling my story a little bit. I founded CCA Global Partners because I believe family businesses are the core of our society. They're the core of our society around the globe. There are over 400 million family businesses in the world, yet 40 million businesses go out every single year. And why? Because they don't have scale. At CCA Global Partners, we showed that scale can make a difference. We service almost 800,000 family businesses and 30,000 child care centers and have an amazing success rate. But we must understand that family businesses need a chance because when a family business goes out, the person who was running it goes into most likely goes into poverty and goes in the list of poverty. Corporations extract value from people, cooperatives generate value with people. Ownership matters. Cooperatives to me are the great equalizer. They give people a stake in the game and build social capital. Around the world, they're changing lives in every single way. And if we want to eradicate poverty, it will happen at the local level. All over the world, different cultures, different sectors, same conclusions. Cooperatives change how wealth is created. who owns it, and who benefits from it. They reinvest locally, create dignified jobs, and strengthen domestic economies. Their diversity is not a weakness. The diversity in cooperatives is our strength. It's the foundation of our resilience. So the question no longer is whether cooperatives work. The question is, why aren't they working together at scale to change more? Despite our strengths, we struggle to match the speed and the scale of corporate competitors. Knowledge stays trapped in silos. Best practices are reinvented instead of shared. In today's economy, big tech controls the digital infrastructure. From cloud services to AI, a handful of companies extract value worldwide while consolidating decision-making power in just a few boardrooms. Nations and communities risk total dependency when ownership isn't local. In the age of AI, the ability to organize and exchange practical knowledge determines who advances fastest. Every cooperative holds experience-based intelligence about what works. The challenge is connecting that intelligence globally without stripping away local ownership or trust. That challenge led to us founding the Principle 6 Cooperative, the very sixth principle in cooperatives, cooperatives doing business with other cooperatives. It's a global cooperative doing business with other cooperatives. It is evidence-based infrastructure for the movement built explicitly to operationalize cooperation at scale. It is not a concept or a pilot, it is live infrastructure, and it does three things. First, it connects cooperatives in a secure, cooperative-owned digital environment. We are leveraging the power of 1 billion members to compete with corporate platforms on equal terms. Second, it creates a structured way to exchange operational knowledge, providing critical scale for technology, for best practices, for AI. And third, It uses cooperative informed AI as an amplifier. It democratizes data and AI, and it shifts emerging technology control away from big tech into democratic member owned hands. It's global in scope and yet community at its core. Principle six demonstrates something critical, that value-based models can lead in future-ready systems. including cooperative control approaches to digital infrastructure and AI. Not extractive, not centralized, but designed to accelerate learning, improve outcomes, and scale social impact responsibility. Technology serves the moment, not the other way around. Artificial intelligence is the new electricity, the backbone of the global economy. If AI continues to evolve under corporate control, It will consolidate knowledge and wealth into the hands of a few. But Co-op AI represents a different choice. It is a member-owned, democratically governed intelligence infrastructure. It allows cooperatives to learn collectively without surrendering control of their data. The co-op movement has always been powered by shared purpose. Now it's time to be powered also by shared intelligence. Moments like this do not come often. The rules of AI are not set yet. This is our chance to help shape them. We built credit unions when financings were exploitive. We organized housing when cooperatives were markets were left behind. But today the challenge is intelligence itself. If we wait, others will define that systems that govern our knowledge. Cooperatives will be permanent users, not owners. But if we act, we can build a model how intelligence should work, democratic, federated, and inclusive. The path forward is not to invent a new development model, it is to scale one that already works. Cooperatives work, but we need to scale them faster and more of them. Cooperation is not a charity, it's an economic design. by building infrastructure for cooperatives to collaborate, we're building an economy where ownership expands and opportunity spreads. That's why cooperatives matter. That's why cooperation between cooperatives even more. And that's why the Global Cooperative Principle 6 exists. The question is no longer whether cooperative solutions work. They do. We must invest collectively in people over profit and do it now.

Thank you so much, Mr. Brodsky, for your, I would say, enlightening speech. It tells your own biography, how you developed in the analog time, the model of scale through family companies and build a co-op of co-op. And now you want to bring this to the digital time with AI being the new electricity. And the principle six is the way how we can bundle a lot of connections together. And it's true. Your story tells us that if we bring together co-ops in a comprehensive connectivity approach, we can really be an alternative to those unequal capitalists who own all the big tech. So thank you very much. for these wonderful contributions. And I think we are now moving to the floor open, questions from the audience, and all these speakers will be involved in responding to them. Thank you again. As I understand, there is not any pre-written request, so everyone who wants to speak, press the button. I see a distinguished representative from Egypt already with the microphone open, so please go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator, and I would like to thank the panelists also for their input. It is interesting to look at different examples of how we advance the agenda, the social development agenda based on the national context. And the multi-stakeholder approach is very important in this connection. So multi-stakeholderism in this connection relates to how the state engages with civil society, the private sector, with the UN system as a partner in implementation as well, and also with other states. So it is the model, how we can advance the agenda based on the common denominator of interests and priorities and goals to achieve. Due to other engagements, I haven't been able to listen to all the interventions. I came in with the discussion about cooperatives and family businesses and how these can be scaled up. For us, maybe in Egypt, we have a bit of a different model. where we have, and this has been cited throughout the week, and also our head of delegation who had to leave early, spoke about it in more than one panel, and it was the initiative on having decent life. And the aim was to target those people living in remote areas, the most vulnerable, those who have little access to infrastructure, who can enjoy all the basic elements that provide for a decent life. And it's not only a life course approach, but it's also a whole of government approach. It's very comprehensive because it addresses infrastructure. And infrastructure goes from water and sanitation to electricity to now digital connectivity, decent work conditions, but also decent income generating activities, especially for small farmers, female headed households. and how you pick people out of poverty and transform them into contributors to the economy from a social development perspective. And this has been going on with the participation of civil society. And civil society does the job of lobbying and fundraising with the private sector. They are an arm for implementation. They have the outreach in the field. And also, they somehow hold the state accountable. They monitor the implementation. They see if the results are being implemented or not. So this is an example that builds on this idea of moving from support to empowerment of communities. And we have hearing sessions for them, and we listen to them in this sense. But I mean, I missed part of this panel and also the previous panel. And sometimes, away from the national context, also we have regional contexts. And we are a host community, for example, to lots of people coming in from different countries around us, around Egypt, where there are, unfortunately, situations of armed conflict. And we bear the part of the brunt of that. And this goes into how we achieve social development for all those people. Not only we don't treat them as refugees, we are very welcoming and integrating of people who come and live in Egypt, whether they are displaced or because of the situation in their countries, but also we have to take into consideration our discussions on social development.

I want to interrupt you now here on this point.

Sure. You want, okay, you want to.

Time is up because we have more delegations to speak.

Okay.

But I think your statement is very clear. Okay. You have found your own methodology to strengthen communities from inside and that's a wonderful experience. Yes. And I think we can relate to that very much. Thank you. Thank you. I would like now to invite the distinguished representative from Paraguay.

Yes, thank you very much, moderator. My thanks to the panelists for sharing their experience and the work of their organizations and governments. First of all, I would like to very briefly share with you the experience of my country. More than 20 years ago, we began to develop a social protection system. which has developed towards a scheme of social development that helped us achieve positive results thus far, such as reducing poverty down to 20% and, um, um, to 4%. A more recent approach was to focus on the creation of areas that were social protection priorities, 42 municipalities among in, in the country. with the highest level of social and economic vulnerability were identified in order to concentrate resources and public policies in those areas. Other programs that were successful included the Zero Hunger in Schools program, which has been in place since 2024, and in a record amount of time, it managed to almost universalize school feeding with a direct impact on poverty reduction, the generation of employment, and strengthening family agriculture. We also have the pension program for older persons, which has universalized pensions from the age of 65, and also The age has been lowered to 60 for persons with disabilities, and it's at 60, 55 for people from indigenous peoples. And finally, we have the Tecopoda program, which is a name in Guarani, our second language. It means living well. And recently, as of 2023, that allowed us to increase by 25% the amount of transfers to families. The aim of this is to break with the transmission of intergenerational poverty. And so the question that I had is that as these programs reach more people and approach universalization, how can governments work with civil society, the private sector and other interested stakeholders to keep scaling up these programs and to continue achieving progress in that final stretch. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. I like the phrase very much. And it's a very clear case that you make how you are supporting vulnerable groups in different manners. I now would like to move on to the distinguished representative from Burkina Faso.

Thank you. I want to thank the panelists for the outstanding information they shared with us. There's a mixed track record that was addressed in Doha, and there were some hopeful messages on that work, and that spotlighted the importance of community resilience programs, financing, and ideas for social inclusion, as well as the contribution of civil societies in the private sector in resilience action through socioeconomic work. Importance was also placed on the regional approach, a concerted approach, and stronger coordination among states and various partners, and inclusive policies conducive to sustainable development while taking account of the various reference frameworks. That is the 2030 agenda, the Seville commitment on financing for development, in various declarations, Doha, Copenhagen, and the program of action. But some numbers were just now provided, Mr. Moderator. And I don't want to pronounce his name incorrectly, but they give us, they are heartening to us because they show that These people account for a great proportion of wealth. And there's some prospect of turning the tide here that is curbing poverty and inequality and gaps. And it's possible to improve access to the digital realm too, because you'll recall what happened during COVID. Those that had internet access saw their schools continue their education. But some developing countries were at home. And so those children were out of school. So how can we roll back this trend, bearing in mind the need to bridge the digital divide I also want to thank the representative of Egypt, who spoke about this major concern. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Representative from Burkina Faso. It's very clear that the fight for inequality needs to continue to fill the gaps, and COVID hasn't definitely benefited to it. I know that you're working in that line to build community resilient programs. That's very important. So I wanted to make clear to the distinguished speakers that after the next delegation, you all have two minutes to give your final reflection with the permission of the chair, of course, before we go to my final statement and to the end of this of this part of the seminar. So be prepared, all of you, you will get your two minutes. But before that, we will now want to give the floor, I would like to give the floor to the distinguished representative from Germany. Please.

Thank you very much, moderator, and thank you very much to all the panelists for this really inspiring panel and so much insight you gave. And since the youth delegates just walked in and we had a wonderful side event this morning in the mission of Finland and our youth delegates from Bulgaria were there as well. We talked about how the perspective of youth can be integrated in all about what we're talking here. And since the panelists from Tanzania stretched co-creation, I wanted to remind us to really bring in the perspective of youth. And since Howard Brodsky, really, you brought the inspiring aspect of how we all can shape AI, that it's not just happening without our influence, I wanted to ask specifically how we can also take into account the role of education in our schools, that we use AI not only, as you say, in the family-owned businesses and all that, but that we can also shape the use of AI in that context as well. Thank you very much.

And thank you, Madam Representative from Germany. Indeed, youth is the most important thing and education. And as you were addressing Mr. Howard Brodsky, I would propose, with the permission of the other speakers, that we now do our two minutes in the reverse order. And I'll give you your two final minutes, and maybe you can start connecting with The lady from Germany, please.

Yes, I think you bring up such an incredible point that our educational system and AI have to be involved so it's people-centric, so it's not just tech-centric. And when it's owned by a few people, I was able to give a talk to the university presidents around the globe about four months ago with the concept of why don't universities get together to form a co-op for AI so that the big conglomerates are not controlling them, that they have a stake in the game. You know, universities and education need a stake in the game, and they could form a cooperative just to deal with the technology part and the AI part so that they have a voice in the game. I think we're at a very critical time in our society where if co-ops don't take more of a role, then we're going to be left to a few people controlling our lives. And it's an opportunity for us. We know the value in co-ops. I think the problem is our communication is not sufficient that people understand the value we create and the opportunity that exists. So I say the time is now to seize it and to really have cooperatives be more of a role in our society.

And thank you, that was exactly within the two minutes, Mr. Brasky, and very good statements you've made. And I would now like to give the microphone to Ms. Fabiola Motta to give her final two minutes of reflection to what we have heard this afternoon.

Yeah, thank you. So I would like to reiterate just what was said right now, because when we talk about scaling up what works at the local level, cooperatives and especially credit unions, cooperative finance, we need to have a seat at the table. We are not just implementers of policy. We are partners with deep roots in communities and a proven ability to deliver jobs, inclusion and resilience where it really matters and when it really matters. So Brazil's experience showed that when governments recognize cooperatives as a part of the solutions and create and enable legal and policy frameworks, local finance can reach the businesses, the rural producers and the territories that are often invisible to traditional systems. So strong partnerships, clear accountability and access to development finance would really improve how cooperatives are treated and how we can be a part of national financing architectures all over the world. So if we want partnerships that truly deliver, we need to listen and work with the actors that are already delivering on the ground every day in their own communities.

Thank you, Ms. Fajona. That's a very clear statement and very helpful. I would like now then, in this very reversed order, move to Ms. Amy Nyan and give your final reflections for this afternoon. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I think for somebody who comes from the university and from research, I think there's something to be said about knowledge democracy as a prerequisite to partnership, whether we think about accountability, evidence-based policy and also how locally generated practices can be scaled up, I think it is important to think about the way we've done research on these things differently. The conventional take generally tends to encourage capacity building, transfer of expertise from the north to the south. And this fits into a very broad pattern of epistemic colonialism, if you want, and which tend to persist in different areas of policy, including social policy. African context in particular tend to be treated as sites for data generation where theory tends to be generated elsewhere. I think in this context, true partnership will require that knowledge be produced differently, particularly in a way that would involve African research institution. And I have one very good example in the context of social policy that has been very generative in bringing together South-South debates around gender-related social policy framework. It's called the GETSPA initiative, the Gender Equitable and Transformative Social Policy for Africa, which is based in Accra, in Ghana, and which brings together different scholars in a way that reverses the usual knowledge flow. So this is the kind of thing that I would like to advocate as a researcher. Thank you.

And that was well done. Thank you so much. We move now to Ms. Canset Guven with your final observations. Thank you.

Turkey works to ensure that no one is left behind, combining strong social assistance with active local outreach and integrated services. A nationwide digital social assistance system brings together data from multiple public institutions to identify households in need, while local units in every district conduct home visits to assess real living conditions, not just paperwork. Support goes beyond cash transfers. Assistance is increasingly linked with childcare, disability, elderly care, employment services, family and psychosocial support. This helps people not only meet immediate needs, but also stay active and included in society. The goal is simple, reach people early, provide support tailored to their situation and help them move forward in dependence rather than long-term dependency. Thank you.

And thank you very much. Great work you're doing. Monsieur Nicolas.

I'll be very brief to wrap things up. I simply want to thank you for all of the work this week. This work has been absolutely vital at this juncture, at this complicated time. We really need to move beyond the magic words, inequality, participation, et cetera. There's a lot to do. I think that we all need to be very ambitious, and we need to work collectively. Because ultimately, when you talk about the climate, you say there is no plan B. And when it comes to social realities, inequality, and cohesiveness, there's no plan B there either. We need to succeed. And we can only do that together, all countries, all the regions, et cetera, at all levels. We need to continue this dialogue. And I thank you very warmly for the work of this Commission for Social Development, which is absolutely crucial.

And thank you for your participation. And distinguished listeners, participants, people present here, I will now have some few closing statements before giving back the microphone to the chair for closing. So as we indeed conclude, despite the fact that we had a very heterogeneous set of stories, I think we can derive three golden threads on finance as a catalyst for development. So the first one is that we all hear from the mindset of a social and economic development, prevail inclusivity and dignity over dependency. Panelists spoke and reminded us about the integrated systems in local communities that can help employment as an engine of dignity, that can help inclusivity, that can help youth and gender empowerment. The second golden thread is about the need to democratize, to democratize finance, to democratize big data, which is similar to finance. As we discussed regarding various financial instruments, we must build this financial highway that connects the global impact investors to local cooperative owners and community owners. We need also patient capital that respects democratic governance. And lastly, the cooperatives as part as the engine of the social and solidarity economy and its infrastructure are essential. As we've heard from the case in the United States and the one from Brazil, cooperatives are not just partners in projects. They are the permanent infrastructure of a fair economy in permanent dialogue with legislators, with farming communities, and with financial providers like credit unions. The Seville commitment and the Doha declarations are indeed mandates for action. They should not stay paper tigers. The turbo charges we need to accomplish the sustainable development goals between now and 2030 are necessary, and we need to stop funding temporary projects and start investing in permanent movements. So thank you, Chair. Thank you, panelists. Also, I'd like to thank ECOSOC for giving us this wonderful opportunity. And also, many thanks for all who have listened in and for your commitment to a more inclusive world.

I thank Mr. Douglas for so skillfully guiding our discussion. And I also thank our panelists and delegations for their contributions. We have thus concluded the Multi-Stakeholder Forum on the priority theme. And the Commission has concluded its program work for today. The general discussion of agenda item 3 and its sub-items A and B will resume and conclude tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 p.m. Delegations remaining in the list of speakers are requested to monitor the live list of speakers and be present in this room tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. sharp. Thank you all, as well as to our interpreters, and the meeting is adjourned.