Beyond the Margins: A CDWD Youth Vision for a Post-Doha Declaration World

For centuries and ages, Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD) have lived at the harshest edges of social and economic exclusion. Yet across regions from Dalit and Burakumin communities in South Asia to Roma settlements in Europe, from Haratin groups in Mauritania to Palenque and Quilombola and Palenque territories in Latin America  youth are rewriting what resistance and leadership look like. Today, as the global community turns toward implementing the Doha Declaration on Eliminating Discrimination Based on Work and Descent, CDWD youth find themselves at a historic turning point.

The Declaration marks the first time an international instrument explicitly acknowledges descent-based discrimination. But declarations alone do not change the world. Movements do. Communities do. Youth do.

Youth at the Margins Understand Change Best

CDWD youth are not passive recipients of development. We are the ones documenting violence, building digital tools for justice, defending territories, challenging stereotypes, and creating new forms of solidarity. Our knowledge is rooted in lived realities  in navigating systems that try to fix our place in society based on birth and labour.

Dalit youth networks in India train communities in legal literacy and digital safety. Roma students build cross-border solidarity and challenge entrenched biases. Haratin youth in Mauritania bravely expose caste slavery and create safe reporting spaces. Palenque and Quilombola youth defend land rights and promote sustainable livelihoods in the face of extractive industries. Across continents, CDWD youth are not only shaping change on the ground but also transforming global spaces. From speaking and moderating sessions at the ECOSOC Youth Forum, the High-Level Political Forum, and the UN Third Committee Youth Forum, to leading local justice initiatives in their own communities, CDWD youth are redefining what representation, leadership, and movement-building look like.

These movements show that young people on the margins hold the deepest understanding of both oppression and the pathways to overcome it.

Implementing the Doha Declaration Requires Closing the Gap With the Grassroots

One of the biggest challenges today is the distance between global spaces and community realities. While the Doha Declaration is a milestone, many CSOs working directly at the grassroots remain unaware of its contents or implications. This disconnect weakens collective power.

To make the Declaration meaningful, civil society must prioritize downward accountability:

– Information must travel back to communities.
Too often, reports sent to UN bodies rely on community stories — but the outcomes of those discussions never return to the same people. This must change.

– More awareness sessions and local language trainings are essential.
CSOs need to organize workshops, radio programs, youth circles, and simple explainers so every community understands their rights under the Declaration.

– Local organizations must be equipped to monitor and use the Declaration.
If grassroots groups understand how to invoke international commitments, they can hold states accountable, influence national policy, and strengthen local advocacy.

The Declaration will only create change if communities know it exists.

UN, States, and CSOs Must Be Accountable to Grassroots Organizations

A post-Doha world demands clear, shared accountability. The UN must ensure that its commitments reach communities not as abstract texts but as practical tools for justice. States must integrate the Declaration into national policies, budgets, and data systems  not limit their engagement to symbolic statements. And CSOs must uphold transparency with the same seriousness they expect from governments: sharing information, reporting back to communities, and involving grassroots actors in every stage of monitoring. Without accountability flowing downward, the Declaration will remain a promise instead of a transformative instrument.

Grassroots Experience Shows What Transformation Looks Like

Across continents, CDWD youth movements have built powerful examples of what justice in action looks like:

– Dalit youth collectives using mobile reporting systems to document caste violence

– Roma youth organizations reframing cultural identity and inclusion

– Haratin activists creating safe channels for those escaping hereditary slavery

– Palenque and Quilombola youth protecting lands and ecosystems that hold centuries of ancestral memory

These successes prove that communities already know how to transform systems , they simply need support, recognition, and information that strengthens their leadership.

A Global Youth Movement Can Redefine Justice

The Doha Declaration creates an unprecedented opportunity for transnational solidarity. Dalit, Roma, Haratin, Palenque, and Quilombola youth can now build shared campaigns, exchange strategies, and speak in one voice about discrimination that is global in structure, even if local in form.

Such a global movement can reshape debates on equality, labour, rights, and climate  and push the international system beyond symbolic commitments.

Declarations Don't Change the World. People Do.

For CDWD youth, the Doha Declaration is not a conclusion. It is a beginning — a mandate to transform centuries of inherited exclusion. But for that transformation to reach the last mile, CSOs must ensure that communities understand, participate in, and shape every step forward.

Youth from communities historically pushed to the margins are ready to lead. The question now is whether the world will finally follow the knowledge they bring knowledge powerful enough to dismantle systems that once felt unshakeable.