United Nations
Social Development Goals

Social Progress for a Better Future

Social Goals & Responsibilities

A. Foundational Recognitions

• Social, economic, and environmental needs are interdependent.
• Economic development must be integrated with social development goals and environmental sustainability.

B. Social Principles & Commitments

• Uphold human dignity, human rights and freedoms, social and cultural rights.
• Economic development should be goal-oriented towards poverty reduction and improving human lives, along with equal civil rights and economic fairness.
• Ensure social inclusion, equality, fairness and justice, and respect for cultural rights and diversity, including equal rights and opportunities for all minorities, all genders, all youth, all poorer people, and all marginalized groups.
• Ensure universal access to food, water, sanitation, housing, healthcare, education, and social protections that guarantee physical safety, peace, and nonviolence.
• Make employment and a livable-income a central goal, increasing skills development, decent fair-paid employment, and small business opportunities.

C. Conditions for Social Development

• Integrate economic development with social development and environmental sustainability.
• Make public institutions democratically-governed, inclusive, transparent and accountable.
• Create a social environment of peace, safety and nonviolence, in communities and internationally.
• Increase education, skills-learning, access to technology and information, freedom of communication and debate.

D. Keys to Social Progress

• Effective and efficient social services
• Employment opportunities and fair pay
• Business opportunities and fair loans
• Economic fair trade and commerce
• Improving economic infrastructure
• Investments in sustainable local economies
• Socially and ecologically responsible economies
• Beneficial and accessible technologies
• Global economic generosity, collaboration, and peaceful relations.

Government Implementation Measures

A. Develop National Plans for Social Progress

• Develop national plans for social development and poverty reduction, aligned with the UN Social Development Goals, and integrate these plans into policies, laws, budgets, and institutions.
• Governments are responsible for providing public money and incentivizing private capital to advance social-benefiting projects, services, and businesses.
• Prioritize budgets and tax policies for social progress and ecological sustainability, over economic favoritism for large corporations and the wealthier class.
• Prioritize social sustainable development through government subsidies and tax-incentives for socially-beneficial projects, businesses and investments.
• Raise tax revenues for public social programs and services, through progressive taxation on large property owners, high-income earners, capital gains, and high-profit businesses.
• Develop national programs and measures to achieve national food security, access to water and sanitation, reduce or eliminate poverty, and reduce economic inequalities of income and property-ownership.
• Strengthen nation-based sustainable industries, economic infrastructure and supply chains, information infrastructure, technology access, and international fair trade.
• Build cross-sector partnerships and coordinated efforts between public institutions and private businesses & investment firms.
• Encourage international assistance and investment from international financial institutions and from private-owned banks, investment firms, and corporations.
• Collaborate with other nations on inclusive social-benefiting projects, along with environmental/climate-benefiting projects.

B. Ensure Basic Needs

• Economically prioritize the elimination of hunger, malnutrition, unsafe drinking water and water-based diseases.
• Implement measures to ensure either affordable or publicly-provided food, water, sanitation, housing, healthcare, education, and clean energy.
• Implement measures to stabilize costs-of-living, including livable-income guarantees and cost-of-living relief measures (such as rent-control).
• Provide public money and incentivize private investments to:
  • Ensure access to clean water, safe sanitation, and waste disposal.
  • Improve food security by providing loans and support for private and cooperative small-farming, food distribution and food markets.
  • Build safe and decent housing, adequate schools and educational centers, public social spaces, recreation and playgrounds.
  • Invest in large and small-scale sustainable clean energy.

C. Increase Education and Employment

• Increase equitable access to basic and advanced education, digital literacy, and skills-training at all levels.
• Promote an education curriculum with values of peace, cultural respect, and social justice.
• Ensure equitable access to employment and small business opportunities.
• Support public and private job creation and decent pay for a livable income, along with support for small business growth and informal self-employment.
• Expand public investment and incentivize job creation in sectors that meet essential public needs such as food production & services, sanitation & health services, education, and housing.
• Ensure worker rights, labor standards, and fair pay, while eliminating gender and racial discrimination and unequal pay discrepancies.

D. Special Support for Marginalized Groups

• Ensure rights and protections for minorities, women and girls, children and youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, migrants, and displaced people.
• Ensure equal access to education, cultural activities, public life, and decision-making.
• Establish special economic programs targeted for women, youth, rural populations, and low-income households.