New Civil Society Collective Statement on Public Services

In November 2025, ahead numerous international meetings to end the year, 111 organisations from across the world came together to endorse a statement on the vital role of public services.

See here for the statement and list of endorsing organisations: https://actionaid.org/news/2025/civil-society-collective-statement-public-services

Extract from the statement

“Public services are the foundation of equitable, inclusive, and sustainable development. Universal access to quality education, health, social protection, energy, water, and sanitation builds human capabilities, reduces inequality, and strengthens the social contract between governments and citizens. Conversely, underinvestment or privatization often leads to exclusion, inequality, and erosion of rights. Strong, publicly financed and accountable services are both a moral imperative and a strategic investment - central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), fulfilling human rights, advancing gender and racial equality, and building resilient economies capable of withstanding future shocks.

Yet national and global policies often fail to do justice to the criticality of public services. The wave of youth-led protests sweeping several countries today reflects widespread frustration as citizens challenge austerity-driven under-funding of education, health, utilities and social protection, demanding governments restore and expand publicly financed, quality public service provision. If we want to make progress on ensuring that our future is public, we need to make this case vigorously in the series of global policy processes happening in November 2025 - at the World Social Summit for Development (WSSD2) in Qatar, the UN Tax Convention negotiations in Kenya, the COP30 Climate conference in Brazil and the G20 Leaders’ Summit  in South Africa.”