DOHA: Minister of Social Development and Family HE Maryam bint Ali bin Nasser Al Misnad has said that Qatar's perspective on social protection stems primarily from the essence of national policy governance, which sets its sights on realising its National Vision 2030, and what it contains - compatible strategies that are interconnected with global development goals.
Addressing a high-level meeting to enhance integrated social protection and consolidate Arab principles and customs related to the family, which was held on the sidelines of the second day of the High-Level Arab Forum for Multidimensional Social Development, on Thursday the minister said that the national strategies of Qatar included the implementation of social policies and programmes in several strategic sectors. They include, family cohesion, women empowerment, and social protection, which ranks high on the scale of development priorities, highlighting that the state's population policy took into account achieving a balance between population growth and the requirements of sustainable development, in a way that enhances the population's productive capabilities, expands their options, and raises their levels of participation in the progress and advancement of Qatari society.
Regarding protecting and promoting the rights of women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, sheindicated that the State had established several mechanisms to monitor, diagnose and integrate roles in the country, and has also granted broad competencies and powers to protect and promote the rights of these groups, including monitoring their conditions, and proposing the necessary means to enhance and follow up on achieving the goals contained in international agreements and charters, to which Qatar has become a party.
The ministeraffirmed Qatar's firm belief, which is evident in its legal, constitutional and legal principles, that the national social protection system revolves around the pillars of an essential area in society, represented by the established family, indicating that the established family is a goal towards which all paths of national social protection move. She explained that society's lack of its most important nucleus, the family, makes the social protection system lose its validity and goals.
She also noted that, based on this vision, the Ministry of Social Development and Family took the initiative to move towards value-added elements that help strengthen the foundations of the family and help it repel attacks of Westernization coming from all directions dismantle its fabric and introduce new values that see individualism as solutions, under various slogans that are coloured with ideological aspects that are destructive and productive of all the ills of societies.
During the meeting, shesaid 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the International Year of the Family, which will be celebrated in Doha in October, to highlight the vital importance that Qatar attaches to the family, and its firm commitment to promoting family-based social well-being, and to reinforce the importance of addressing major global trends that affect the family.
The Arab ministers of social development and family along with the secretary-general of the Arab League on Thursday signed the Doha Pledge for the Established Arab Family, which comes as an extension of Qatar's efforts to embed the principles and identity of the Arab family and protect it from risks that threaten its unity and cohesion.
