Global Governance,neoliberalism and national responses: The case of Bangladesh’s ready‐made garment (RMG) sector

This article on the ready‐made garment (RMG) sector of Bangladesh shows how over‐reliance on foreign capital for development financing and deregulated investment—a hallmark of neoliberal economic arrangements—undermines the incorporation of SDGs’ and INGOs’ equity principles, contributing to biased policy responses yielding unequal outcomes. The article cautions that while countries prioritize economic growth over social and environmental nourishment and continue to adopt neoliberal economic policies to promote economic growth, inequity is unavoidable, if not inevitable. Thus, the way forward may be to shift the focus of ‘development’ from the economy to society, to building ‘good societies’ where institutions and strategies, including those that contribute to economic growth, are organized such that these complement not compromise the evolution of such societies.     

The Millennium Development Goals: Key Current Issues and Challenges

The current global financial and economic crisis has severely impaired social and economic progress throughout the world. Does this mean the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? This article addresses this question, considering selected theoretical and strategic issues, including new and incremental approaches, the role of governmental leadership and operational integrity and the underlying question of appropriate development paradigms. It concludes that scaling‐up of current MDG efforts is imperative, as is the adoption of new and incremental approaches.     

Interpersonal Reasons for Interpersonal Perceptions: Gender-incongruent Purpose Goals and Nonverbal Judgment Accuracy

Women’s tendency to outperform men on measures of accuracy in interpreting the meaning of nonverbal behavior might be due to such measures being more congruent with women’s interpersonal goals than men’s. The present study examined undergraduate men’s and women’s (N = 41) nonverbal judgment accuracy on the Interpersonal Perception Task-15 (IPT-15; Costanzo & Archer, 1993 [.The interpersonal perception task-15 (IPT-15). Berkeley: University of California Center for Media and Independent Learning) when the purpose for using their judgment skills was manipulated to be either congruent or incongruent with stereotypic “masculine” and “feminine” interpersonal goals. Results showed that each gender was at a relative disadvantage in judgment accuracy in the gender-incongruent goal conditions: women were relatively less accurate when they thought the IPT-15 measured judgment skills of use to interrogators in the military, whereas men were relatively less accurate when they thought the IPT-15 measured judgment skills of use to social workers in the social services. Discussion centers on the importance of matching individuals’ interpersonal goals to the purpose goals of the measure when using measures of interpersonal sensitivity.

人发大会:千年目标与生育健康深化

本文将对生育健康的研讨置于国际人口与发展大会和联合国千年发展目标的时空背景下,认为生育健康从提出、认同到履行的15年间,各国都在积极响应并努力践行,但伴随千年发展目标的确立与履行,对生育健康的认识还在不断深化。     

Situating social work within the post-2015 Global Agenda

ABSTRACT

The launch of the post-2015 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (UN) initiates a new set of global priorities to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Over a three-year process, governments and civil society representatives at the UN planned and negotiated the post-2015 Agenda and a set of SDGs and targets. Unlike the MDGs which focused almost entirely on developing countries, the new agenda is intended to be universal and therefore applicable to Europe and North America. The goals address a wide range of issues including poverty and inequality, health, international trade, climate change and gender, with a strong emphasis on the environment. This article will provide an overview of the post-2015 process and explore the implications of this agenda for social work globally and locally. It will highlight areas of particular interest to the profession, especially prospects for addressing growing global inequality within and between countries, and concerns over the role of human rights protection. The advantages and limitations of linking social work’s global agenda to the new UN priorities will be assessed.     

An Eight-Step Guide to Creating and Sustaining a Mentoring Program

Mentoring is an extremely valuable activity for both individuals and organizations. Mentoring within organizations can develop and integrate employees into their corporate culture. Mentoring outside the mentees’ work groups or through professional development organizations can give broader perspective and support, especially in times of transition. But mentoring programs require tremendous effort to start, organize, and maintain. Few last more than two years. This article provides a structured approach to starting and sustaining a successful program. The steps include understanding an organization’s particular needs, learning from small pilot programs, following up with mentoring pairs during a committed formal mentoring period, and evaluating results from each program’s cycle to learn and grow the program. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

APEC茂物目标中期审评与中国的对策选择

茂物目标中期审评是2005年APEC韩国年的重点议程之一,也是关系到APEC今后发展方向的关键性工作。APEC为此次中期审评制定了紧密的进程和详细的方法,并提交了全面评估和分析报告。中期审评的要点是对茂物目标做出明确界定,对贸易与投资自由化取得的成就进行盘点,指出其存在的不足与挑战,并提出相应的战略措施调整与机制改革。作为APEC一支重要的政治与经济力量,中国可以利用这次中期审评与制定“釜山路线图”的机会把握和影响APEC的未来趋势。     

Organizations in Movement: An Ethnographer in the Spanish Campaign <Emphasis Type="Italic">Poverty Zero</Emphasis>

During the year 2005 many organizations took part in Poverty Zero, a campaign that aims to reach the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals for 2015. Based on participant observation and open ended interviews, this paper describes the origins, development, and evaluation of Poverty Zero in Andalusia (Spain). It examines, by means of ethnography, how DNGOs (Development Nongovernmental Organizations) create social movement networks, and explores the limits and possibilities of their advocacy activities. The paper concludes that DNGOs tend to generate centralized social movements with reduced questioning of the global system. Nevertheless, as shown in the case of the Andalusian Alliance against Poverty, the more decentralized a movement, the deeper its transformational potential.

Spirituality in Social Work Education: A Development and Discussion of Goals that Flow from the Profession's Ethical Mandates

Growing interest in incorporating spirituality into curriculum content exists. Little consideration, however, has occurred regarding the purpose or goals of this content. Building upon the profession's ethical mandates, this paper develops two intertwined objectives that should inform content: understanding spiritual diversity and the discrimination subordinate faiths encounter in the dominant mainstream culture. Theories are reviewed and empirical data are cited that provide a context for understanding, and illustrate the need to address, the issues of spiritual diversity and discrimination. In effect, this material is based upon the same widely used template that informs social work content in other areas of diversity—namely that a difference in worldviews in conjunction with a power differential fosters bias toward subordinate worldviews. It is suggested that the profession's ethics require the adoption of the same basic template in the area of spiritual diversity as is used in other areas of diversity.