Her Highness Sheikha Moza's Speech at the Second World Summit for Social Development

Peace be upon you. 

Esteemed Guests…

Welcome. I am pleased to join you today at the Second World Summit for Social Development in Doha, where the international community has come together to envision a brighter, more human-centered future—a future where justice becomes the scale from which progress is measured, dignity serves as the guiding compass for policy, moving us beyond the dissonance of lofty promises towards real, measurable achievements. 

Building on the legacy of the first summit held 30 years ago in Copenhagen, we gather today to participate in one of the summit’s sessions “Education as the Foundation of the New Social Contract,” to revisit the topic of social development, now more urgent than ever. Our world is experiencing intensifying demographic changes, widening social disparities, accelerating technological advancements; thereby worsening the crises affecting education. 

I assure you that the principles of the Copenhagen Declaration and its Programme of Action, placing people at the center of social development, have not lost their relevance. Rather, emerging challenges, particularly in the field of education, have only reinforced the urgency of recommitting to these principles and realizing them on the ground.

Ladies and Gentlemen… 

I do not wish to dwell on what is self-evident and what we all know to be true, but I believe it is time we stopped avoiding or evading fundamental questions because asking the right questions enables us to find the right solutions. When we ask ourselves if finding sustainable solutions to the global challenges of social development is truly possible, and especially in developing countries. I firmly believe solutions are possible if we choose to act and futile if we decide to be indifferent. 

How can social development achieve its purpose without first establishing the pillars of an inclusive justice that addresses root causes and identifies existing vulnerabilities? How can this be achieved? There can be no development amidst discrimination, no stability with marginalization, no prosperity amid exclusion. 

In light of this, the world must never accept the reality that there are 272 million out-of-school children, according to 2023 UNESCO figures. And you can imagine how that number has increased over the last two years, as a result of the horrific conflicts taking place in several locations across the globe. 

The grim figures and statistics carry with them a distressing message, one that appeals to the conscience of humanity. They call for our immediate mobilization to transform policies and mandates into actions and achievements. Social development is not a fixed matrix, nor is it a set of hollow rhetoric, or a publicity stunt, or a façade masking veiled truths. Rather, it is the story of an individual who uplifts their community when given a fair chance, and who achieves the extraordinary when granted a genuine opportunity to innovate. 

Arabs have thousands of tales to tell, allow me to share with you one such story: the story of an Arab who was raised within his community and nurtured by its values. He dreamt one day of becoming an impactful citizen in the development of his homeland and region. However, he faced one roadblock after another and in his many desperate attempts to overcome them, he grew hopeless. He then decided to search for another country where he could fulfill his hopes and dreams. He searched for individual salvation when the collective dream proved unattainable. 

There, in his substitute homeland, his story of innovation and creativity begins. Meanwhile, here in the Arab region, we remain in a state of retrogression. That is until we find the best approach for social development that places the human being at its core, recognizing them as the ultimate aim for development and what drives it forward. 

Esteemed Guests… 

Much is said about development, but we often refrain from closely examining its true essence. Its most prominent pillar is human beings themselves, who make up the heart of social development and its ultimate purpose. 

If we consider human beings our most valuable assets, then education remains the most enduring form of capital investment. They are the spring from which the streams of progress flow and the foundation upon which the pillars of sustainable development are erected. Education is not merely one component that makes up the sectors of society – it is the sum of all sectors – for there can be no economy, politics, healthcare, culture or even a sustainable ecosystem without education. And if we fail to advance education with innovative sustainable solutions that align with the accelerating technological advancements of our world, then no development project, be it economic, cultural, or social, will succeed, and we will remain trapped in the cycle of failure, regression, and powerlessness, and we will lose our footing in the landscape of development. To the extent that we invest in education, we can better shape a future for humanity. Conversely, when we fail to recognize the importance of education and investing in it, we lose our compass, drifting away from the horizons of progress.

I am firmly convinced that success in achieving sustainable development is not only reserved for those with more abundant resources, but for those who possess the wisdom to invest and manage it effectively.

This is the vision that drove us in Qatar to establish a path of development that places young people in their rightful role as shapers of the future, as learners, innovators, entrepreneurs, and citizens engaged in decision-making. 

This inspiring vision has led to remarkable achievements by Qatar: successfully utilizing natural resources, empowering human capital, and generating meaningful job opportunities that replace traditional job duplication. 

With a deep-rooted belief that the Sustainable Development Goals are interconnected, Qatar has exerted every effort to instill the foundations of peace and the pillars of diplomacy as the cornerstones of its social development goals. 

Honored guests…

There is another story. About a child robbed by an occupier, of her most treasured possession, the closest to her heart: her pen. To her, that pen represented the key to her future and her weapon, albeit small, against injustice and dispossession. Her pen was stolen but her dream was not, and hope remains ablaze and glowing in her young heart. 

She gathers the ashes from the rubble that surrounds her, and fashions herself a pen, and erects a tent from tattered fabric to create for herself and her friends a school. A school that teaches them that letters are undefeated, and that learning can happen amidst the rubble, an affirmation of life and resistance against erasure.

And when a ceasefire was announced in Gaza, that child and her friends were among the first of children who raced, clutching their pens and tattered papers towards makeshift exam halls, despite the fact that over 90% of Gaza’s schools were completely destroyed, or rendered unfit for purpose. These children inherently recognize that education is not a luxury but a necessity for survival and a lifeline to a safe harbor away from fear, ignorance, aimlessness and attempts to eradicate them.

Education is the core pillar for development; there can be no development without knowledge and no renaissance without an enlightened mind. Education is not a luxury, nor a privilege, nor a favor to be granted. It is a right, a responsibility, and a tool to liberate the mind, build human capacity, safeguard our values and generate ideas to reshape our world. Education, above all else, is an existential matter about a nation’s existence or demise. To achieve a real sustainable development as we envision it , education must be recognized as equal in importance to development itself, advancing together on the same track. 

Let us begin at schools, universities, laboratories and libraries where minds that build nations are shaped and futures are written, futures free from exile and substitute homelands and where pens are never snatched from the hands of children who dream of peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen… 

These are the stories of Arab nations, each striving in their own way to forge the future. Some manage to rise in one place, while others stumble elsewhere, familiar stories that resemble one another, tales of nations, all of which march towards social progress. Their success varies depending on their ability to apply the formula for development: a formula composed of dreams, human potential and the best use of natural resources.

Its noble goal is to uplift individuals who can fully fulfill their material and spiritual needs. This is an ongoing effort that enables the individual to demand from their nations what is unattainable elsewhere: a sense of contentment in belonging and the legitimacy to dream. 

To dream of a future with unlimited potential, one that encompasses the breadth of the human condition, everything from the primordial cave to the mysterious frontiers of space, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge.

Let us dream of a more luminous dream—a shared all-encompassing dream: the dream of development.