Abstract
This short article is designed to provoke thought and discussion on the Global Agenda: The Next Ten Years. Through testing ideas across the social work profession, within the communities we work alongside and with other likeminded professions we are already acting to shape the future of the social work role. Add your ideas through the link below.
‘We are not just social workers, we are visionaries’ were the opening lines at the 2019 Asia-Pacific conference in India. Vision for a new future is core to social work. This is evidenced in daily practice around the world where practitioners bind the profession’s principles of liberation, human rights and social justice together with the unique solutions of the families and communities they work alongside. Vision has also been demonstrated by the profession as a whole, and perhaps in its greatest expression, with the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development, referred to below as the Agenda.
The Agenda was launched in 2010 when 3000 social work representatives from all regions across the globe met together in Hong Kong. It was a time when social work wanted to unite, to make a stand, to share resources and to propel forward the profession’s perspective of social justice and new relationships to manage the world.
The 2010 10-year Agenda was dynamic, holistic and visionary. Its four integrated pillars addressed all aspects of social development, some that were well understood by the profession and some which were new. These pillars were ‘social and economic equality’, ‘dignity and worth of all people’, ‘community and environmental justice’ and ‘human relationships’.
A decade later, we can all look back with enormous pride at what has been achieved. Predating the United Nation’s (UN) ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs), social workers promoted an integrated global campaign that significantly built the confidence, unity and growth of the profession. Through the Agenda, social work reclaimed its political voice and expanded its core foundations further integrating climate justice, indigenous wisdom and the facilitation of community-led development into its international body of knowledge.
Over these 10 years, the profession grew by 40% as new national associations of social work formed in response to this global campaign. The profession also reached new heights of recognition and was able to demonstrate that social work is essential for every society’s economy, peace and sustainability. Acknowledgement of social work’s importance in social development even reached the height of the UN’s Secretary-General, Ban ki Moon, saying that social work is essential to achieving the SDGs.
The question now, at the end of the first 10 years, is how to build on these vast successes and how to shape the profession’s impact going forward in the next decade. This has been a focus for International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), involving a worldwide online consultation as well as regional and national discussions during the past year. Like the first 2010 Agenda, social workers this time have considered the context of the global political context in their responses. These have included that the SDGs have not yet made the progress the UN had intended and the increasing political shifts supporting populism, racism and nationalism. These realities have brought a sharp focus to the consultation and especially on (1) how the social work role can contribute to building grass-roots solidarity within communities, between communities, across societies and between countries and (2) how social workers can assist communities to identify their own goals and aspirations which can be mapped against broader global strategies such as the SDGs.
The consultation so far reflects that social workers’ everyday ‘ground-up’ skills of facilitating solidarity within families and across populations are critically needed in the absence of other global civil society level rights structures. The emerging consultation message is, The next Agenda needs to focus more outwards, to bridge the gaps between the broad social movements, to facilitate communities to organize in advocating for their rights, for the profession to act as a catalyst in co-creating a more inclusive and informed democracy and the awareness that interdependent communities and an interdependent world are essential to sustainability and peace.
Envisaging how this might look, a possible title for the next agenda could be ‘The Global Agenda for Social Work, Sustainability and Social Justice’. Themes could be developed that blend everyday language along with the social work’s professional terminology so that everyone can see themselves as a part of the Agenda and thereby as a part of shaping the future. Theme examples could include the following:
‘Shared values’: Promoting shared ethical frameworks across communities, societies and the world.
This theme casts the profession’s tried-and-tested global ethical principles outwards, saying that the principles are not just for the profession but for all people.
‘Living together’: Recognising diverse interdependencies and everyone’s strengths.
This theme highlights the core mandates of social work, that all people in the world need to be equally recognized and live in interdependent relationships and that all people in the world have strengths which are needed to foster those relationships and build inclusive communities.
‘Livable Futures’: Building inclusive, safe, sustainable and thriving environments.
This theme speaks to ensuring environments are respectfully managed in their own rights as well as to meet people’s rights in this and the following generations.
‘Decision making’: Facilitating rights and responsibilities.
Recognizing that voting once every 4 years in a private booth is one of the weakest forms of democracy, this theme highlights the critical importance of building systems of local and global participatory democracy.
‘Solidarity’: Nurturing unity in diversity.
This theme challenges market-driven political systems that deny equality for all and focuses on the realization that community, societal, regional and global unity must be based on the celebration of diversity, and through solidarity, rights, security, social justice, economic and environmental sustainability can be won.
The outward focus of such an Agenda would represent a natural step in the profession’s development. But it would also come with challenges that would need to be managed. The use of broader language should not deny the significant complexity of social relationships and social solutions. Nor should generalized themes prevent the social work profession from being able to focus on specific issues, for example, ‘ending violence against women’ or ‘the right to birth registration’, as all issues should be able to be highlighted alongside the general themes.
The consultation generated so far suggests that the themes need to be more integrated than the previous phase, more outward looking and more focused on binding communities together. An Agenda that will build on the enormous successes of the past 10 years, that utilize the profession’s role in every community and provide inspiration to change the world.
Make your contribution to the Global Agenda discussions here: https://www.ifsw.org/ga-consultation/