The Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development started in 2010 when 3000 social work representatives and social development professionals came together to set the priorities for the profession until 2020. This significantly successful period of the Global Agenda has been an essential voice in proactively setting and fulfilling the Sustainable Developmental Goals, working towards more peaceful and just societies and strengthening the voice of the social work profession.
Now, the social work profession needs to examine new themes and processes to expand the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development for the years 2020 to 2030. From IFSW, we are launching a consultation process, where your input is essential to build a robust and inclusive Global Agenda that meets the real needs of all people. The consultation period will end in July 2020.
Please make your contributions to the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development 2020 – 2030 by filling in the comments box at the bottom of this page.
To see the reports of the Global Agenda from 2010 to 2018 please visit the IFSW Bookstore where you can download the reports for free. Below is a video message from the IFSW President Silvana Martinez and Secretary-General Rory Truell providing some examples of the success of the Global Agenda and inviting all people interested in the development of social work to participate in the consultation process. The video is subtitled in both Spanish and English.
Comments Section
Please leave any comments on your proposed Global Agenda themes for 2020 to 2030 and any suggestions for how to integrate the themes across the decade which also allows the Global Agenda process to effectively respond to any unforeseen social issues that may arise.
Happy international women’s day everyone!
I am a social work student from Germany and Id like the Global Agenda 2020 to talk about all topics regarding womens living conditions all over the world. I would like to use my voice as an upcoming social work professional and as a woman to discuss topics like:
violence against women,
situation of womens shelters,
forced sexwork and human trafficking,
the situation of transwomen,
abortion and healthcare.
To work on these issues is a necessary thing for women worldwide.
We are students from Germany. In our seminar “International Social Work” we pay attention to social work in different regions / countries. My group focused on Brasil, for the upcoming agenda we set up three points that Brasil should improve.
The first one is social justice: Brasil has a huge gap between rich and poor, to avoid the rise of crime they need social justice.
The second one is environmentalism: The government of Brasil needs to take care of the Amazon rainforest and has to stop/ reduce the deforestation.
The last point is international networking: The country has to further educate its citizens. Without education no progress can be made.
Hello, we are 4 students from Germany and study social work at the Fliedner Fachhochschule in Düsseldorf.
As part of our studies, we also have a seminar on international social work.
Due to the “Global Social Work Agenda” we have divided into groups in the seminar. Each group had a different country and at the end of the seminar there was a discussion about what we want from social work for our country and which are the three (for us) most important goals.
As a country, we have chosen Austria.
For Austria, we hope that the focus of social work will be on migration and integration, among other things. So we want to get more people into society.
Another key, which is very important for us as aspiring social workers, is that poverty is reduced, since about 18% of the inhabitants of Austria are at risk or already living in poverty. Through integration, we hope that many people will succeed in learning or getting a job, either to get out of poverty or not to fall into poverty.
We also want social work recognized as a profession. In the long run, we want to develop a common guideline for social work internationally. Among these we set ourselves the goal of creating equivalent offers of help.
It is important that more and more courageous and dedicated social workers are committed to their work and involved in policy making so that they can discuss and set goals, suggestions and considerations together.
Hello everybody,
We are students of the Fliedner University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf (Germany). During the seminar “International and European Developments in Social Work” we have simulated a Global Conference of Social Work.
For this reason we have dealt with social work in South Africa and have formulated some goals which we consider very important for the next Global Agenda.
From the point of view of a South African social worker we deem it important that the issue of healthcare provision is to be taken into consideration in a new Global Agenda of Social Work. South Africa’s national health care system is by far not sufficient. The poor population which makes up a large part of the total population is receiving little to none primary health care. As a consequence, many children die in the first years of their lives. Furthermore, the rate of HIV infections is still very high in the poor social classes so that a much better information and clarification is necessary.
Another important issue of a new Global Agenda of Social Work should be the fight against the homelessness in South Africa. Many inhabitants are living in the so-called townships in the suburbs of big cities. Within those townships, the living conditions are not acceptable, at all. The conditions in those surroundings are no good corner stones for a child-friendly growing up.
In our opinion, the issue „Education“ should be included in a new Global Agenda of Social Work, not only for South Africa but in general terms. The right of education should be accessible to everyone worldwide. Due to the facts that
a) many families cannot afford their children’s education at school
b) the state schools are having too few teachers and are not adequately equipped,
many children cannot go to school. Instead they are helping at home or are going to work to support their families. Due to their lack of education, the children are at risk of committing crimes, finding no work and having to live on the streets.
We are students from the “Fliedner Fachhochschule” in Germany. It’s a college of higher education. Our study Course is social work. Our project is to represent social work and their main goals of one Country we decided to look into. Our choice of Country is Turkey. Turkey is not that known for performing social work as much as Germany do, but you can also define it as a social Country next to europe. In our opinion Turkey is a Country which is not fair on human Rights. There are many politial reasons why men over there dont have the choice to talk About their Point of view in public. Many People got convicted because of their opinion on the politics. The freedom of opinion is not on its Right place. We also found out, that Turkey got a lot of homeless Children on the Streets. Many of them dont even got a bed to Sleep or just dealing with drugs daily. In our opinion social work in Turkey should be focus more on Teenagers and childrens Rights. Children are the future and they Need more help on their way Living a “normal” and Independent life. Even People wich are in danger (because of loosing their Job) or getting convicted because of political reasons, of telling their own opinion, should get more assistance from other countries and tgeir organisations. Also in their own Country should be a possibility for organize more Projects for more human Rights. The fact is, that human Rights in Turkey still exist but politics dont keep it when it comes to political force.
We are students of the Fliedner University of Applied Science in Düsseldorf (Germany). In our work we discussed the topic „Child and youth services in Sweden“. One of the three goals we considered important for Sweden is the participation of pupils with special needs. The second one we worked out is the integration of refugees, which is already well managed in Sweden. The last goal is to mitigate juvenile crime.
Our seminar which deals with international development has given us a little insight in several problem areas around the world. However there has also been many positive and well-working areas that we have learned about. Furthermore we got informed about social working in different countries und gained a lot of information about differences and similarities of them.
We are two social work students from Germany. In our seminar „International social work“ we pay attention to social work in different regions. We chose the country Austria. Of particular importance to us are five issues on which the Global Agenda has still to work on:
-security and the fight against legal migration
-securing prosperity and competitive capability through digitisation
-to improve cooperation with third world countries so that vulnerable individuals can be supported
There is also a huge need to improve gender equality and women’s labor market opportunities. We think the Global Agenda is an opportunity to discuss these issues and an important step on the way against injustice.