E-Dialogue "Creating an Inclusive Society: Practical Strategies to Promote Social Integration"
Background:
The World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995) established the notion of social integration in the intergovernmental discourse and national policy making. The Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action, a key outcome of the Summit, pledged to make the eradication of poverty, promoting full employment and fostering social integration overriding objectives of development. The Declaration contains a specific commitment to advance social integration to create “a society for all” through fostering inclusive societies that are stable, safe, just and tolerant and that respect diversity, equality of opportunity, and participation of all people, including disadvantaged and vulnerable groups and persons.
A “society for all” is one in which every individual, each with rights and responsibilities, has an active role to play. Such an inclusive society is promoted by social policies that seek to reduce inequality and that are trying to create flexible and tolerant societies that embrace all people. Among other things, the Copenhagen Programme of Action called for creating social institutions and mechanism that are accessible to people and are responsive to their needs; ensuring opportunities for all people to participate in all spheres of public life; and strengthening participation and involvement of civil society in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of decisions. It gave special emphasis to measures to meet the needs and interests of those who face obstacles in participating fully in societies.
Achieving a “society for all” has proved elusive. The concepts and approaches are complex, making it difficult for most Governments to impl ement inclusive social policy or participatory planning. Some Governments embraced mainstreaming, but mainstreaming does not always guarantee participation. To achieve the kind of integration that is envisaged, Governments should promote active participation by various social groups – especially those historically excluded – in policy and planning processes. This requires measures to ensure that every group has an opportunity to express its views and become engaged in decision-making that affect their lives.
Making “a society for all” operational is crucial. In its efforts to follow-up on the commitments made at the Social Summit, the Division for Social Policy and Development of UNDESA has undertaken a series of activities, geared at promoting inclusive policy processes as well as exploring the potential of dialogue as a means to resolve conflicts non-violently and transform societies to be more inclusive and participatory, and, by extension, to further social cohesion. There is a general consensus that a concept of “social integration”, as a process for building and changing social relations, can play a central role in overcoming various social challenges, and has relevance for conflict transformation and peacebuilding. One of the recommendations arising from the discussions at the United Nations was to further explore ways to measure social integration, or the degree of social cohesion, to assess its impact; and to this end, discuss what types of indicators or proxy indicators, including complementary elements to existing indicators, could be looked at. In a publication entitled, “Participatory Dialogue: Towards a stable, safe and just society for all” (February 2007) prepared by DSPD, measuring social integration is identified as one of the most important research and policy goals. It has been suggested that developing some specific indicators or a composite index could be useful to further our understanding of social integration, as well as to measure progress in social integration. The question, however, is how to make such index methodologically adequate- what components or weights could be used to make it truly representative.
Against this background, the forthcoming Expert Group Meeting will explore a variety of approaches to expand and enhance the inclusiveness of policies and policy-making processes, as well as institutional mechanisms. It will also highlight participatory aspects of the decision-making processes, including information gathering methods at the local and community level. One of the aspects to be explored may be the role of trust and social capital in finding collective solutions to various social challenges.
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