This year has proven challenging for multilateral cooperation. Questions have emerged about leadership in global development efforts, as has the role of the United Nations.

Meanwhile, negotiations on the political declaration of the Second World Summit on Social Development (WSSD2) have been ongoing. This outcome will be a document that goes some way to recognizing the scale of the current global development challenges, particularly for persons with disabilities. This is an achievement of multilateral cooperation that should reassure those of us who believe that we are stronger when we work together.

In November, leaders will gather in the Qatari capital for the WSSD2. The three-day event will echo Copenhagen 1995 when the first summit was held, but this time with a louder, clearer call to make societies work for everyone. For many of the 1.3 billion persons with disabilities worldwide – that is, one in six of us – these are not abstract policy topics. They are daily realities.

The stakes are clear. The UN’s latest scorecard indicates that only 17% of Sustainable Development Goals targets are on track; progress on more than a third has stalled or reversed. For many persons with disabilities, the cost of that drift can show up in lost schooling, unaffordable health care, and closed doors in the job market.

So, when it comes to the much-needed delivery of promises to persons with disabilities, can leaders in Doha reignite belief in the pursuit of disability-inclusive global development?

The test ahead

Many in the disability community are wary of inspirational speeches with no tangible outcomes; what they need is employment, education, and a truly inclusive world. There are three pillars of the summit: poverty eradication, full and productive employment and decent work, and social integration. Each of these have a concrete disability dimension that will be a test of governments’ intention and willingness to act.

The first test is social protection. The International Labour Organisation’s Social Protection Floors Recommendation (No. 202) gives governments a blueprint for guaranteeing basic income security and essential health care across the lives of persons with disabilities. Yet globally, coverage of disability benefits remains uneven, with only around a third of those with high support needs receiving cash benefits.

At least 0.5% of a country’s GDP is needed for good coverage, but low and middle income countries use an insufficient 0.1%. Systems which are easily accessible enable families to stay afloat, caregivers to work, and the path out of poverty becomes easier to navigate. The ideal system covers both income security and additional disability-related costs.

The second test for governments is their commitment to decent work for people with disabilities. We know the many barriers that people encounter daily, from attitudes, inaccessible recruitment, workplaces not built with everyone in mind, and a lack of reasonable accommodation. Yet the answers to many of these issues are clear-cut: accessibility by default, fair pay for equal work, adjustments that are routine rather than exceptional, and skills programs that welcome young women and men with disabilities from the start. None of this requires inventing a new treaty; it requires applying the one the world already agreed on, with budgets attached.

The third pillar: social integration, is about belonging. It is the difference between being a ‘beneficiary’ and being a neighbor, or a colleague, or a teammate. It is about closing the gap and removing the barriers that stop women and girls from accessing their rights and getting equal opportunities. It is about achieving an equal world where people with disabilities participate fully in every sphere of community life as valued members of society.

In 1995, Copenhagen promised a society for all. The Doha political declaration, with the world of 2025 in mind, has been agreed and should be adopted during the summit in November. It includes good disability language as well as clear references to the participation of people with disabilities in decision-making. But integration in today’s world means inclusive civic participation – from conceiving policies to monitoring their implementation and advising how to adjust them – in addition to co-designing schools, clinics, and city streets. It means ensuring that digital platforms, from e-learning systems to government portals, are fully accessible by default and digital services work for the widest range of users from the outset. When the design is universal, participation stops being exceptional.

The generation that won’t wait

So, what would success look like after the summit? For a start, disability-responsive social protection floors aligned with ILO standards. In addition, inclusive employment targets aligned with Article 27 and General Comment 8 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and participation guarantees so that organizations of persons with disabilities, especially youth- and women-led groups, help shape, budget and monitor policies from the start.

There is an energy among young persons with disabilities that was not there five or so years ago. Young people are using technology to bypass traditional barriers. This momentum needs channeling right now. The younger generation has no patience for 30-year plans, and the older generation does not have the luxury of time.

Equally important, therefore, is what happens after the event. Last September, UN Member States adopted the Pact for the Future, an action-oriented roadmap to modernize multilateral cooperation and follow through on 2025 milestones. The UN system has already sketched the arc: agreements reached at global meetings only matter if they are translated into country plans, financed, and tracked in public. The summit in Doha fits squarely on that arc.

The measure of its success will be visible in budgets, procurement rules, teacher training modules, accessible hiring processes, provision of reasonable accommodation, and social facilities with ramps built to specification. It is therefore essential that people with disabilities continue to engage in its monitoring by engaging in the Commission for Social Development, which will be held every February to monitor the Doha declaration commitments.

The choice

The summit offers world leaders a choice. It can allow them to continue with nice words, group photos, and minimal change. Or it can help them recognize that disability inclusion is not charity but necessity, not kindness but justice, and certainly not tomorrow’s priority but today’s opportunity. Leaders have included people with disabilities in numerous sections of the declaration and now they will need to integrate or adjust their national plans so they can be implemented.

Member States can help make this a turning point by involving persons with disabilities to inform how they will translate the commitments in the Political Declaration into national action: How can we design action plans with those affected, across generations and genders, in the room? How will a person with a disability feel this change in their daily life within the next budget cycle? How can we measure it simply and publicly? How can adjustments be made based on contributions from people with disabilities?

The future must be practical and create a world where a young person with a disability can study, land a first job, and build a life with a safety net that actually catches them. The path needs to be equally practical: put disability at the center of poverty policy, decent work, and social integration. Then publish the disaggregated data, conceive plans, fund the plans, and keep the door open for the next generation to lead.

If this summit in Doha can do that, it will not be just another summit. It will be the moment that the mantra “leave no one behind” stops being just a promise and becomes a plan to deliver an equal world.