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.     

Steering the Poverty‐Environment Nexus in Central Asia: A metagovernance analysis of the Poverty‐Environment Initiative (PEI)

The close and reciprocal ties between poverty and environmental degradation present significant potential for simultaneous improvement of the livelihood of the poorest along with increased opportunities and enhanced resilience of the environment and natural resources. By supporting governments and other stakeholders in designing and implementing development plans that tackle environmental and poverty concerns in a joint manner, the globally operating UNDP‐UNEP Poverty‐Environment Initiative (PEI) addresses a major governance challenge for sustainable development (SD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular. Focusing on Central Asia, and specifically Tajikistan, a country outside the spotlight of studies concerned with SD governance mechanisms, and through the analysis of PEI programme documents and stakeholders’ interviews, this article probes into the governance and governance co‐ordination (metagovernance) settings for SD. The article closes by presenting a set of recommendations to improve governance co‐ordination, while achieving more inclusive decision‐making and ultimately increasing the impact of PEI on the society and the environment. Specifically, it argues for improved information policy and enhanced integration of endogenous knowledge. Furthermore, national and local development planning and private initiatives should be better linked, and the different levels of governance for poverty‐environment mainstreaming should be more coherent. The solutions discussed are of relevance for wider Central Asia and the global community engaged in moving the SDGs into the mainstream of governance and policy frameworks.     

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.     

价值澄清理论视野下大学生价值观教育创新

随着市场经济的深入发展和价值观念的多样化趋势,大学生价值观教育的传统理念与方法捉襟见肘。价值澄清理论主张教给学生澄清价值观念的技巧与价值选择的能力,这符合大学生价值观念多样化的实际;借鉴价值澄清理论改进大学生价值观教育将成为时代的选择。当代中国大学生价值观教育中要尊重大学生的主体地位,发挥大学生在价值观念形成中的主体作用;注重培养大学生的价值选择能力,提高大学生的价值判断和价值选择水平;建立平等合作的师生关系,营造大学生接受社会主义核心价值体系的良好气氛;关注大学生的日常生活,引导大学生在生活中接收社会主义核心价值体系。     

Seeking urban sustainability on the world stage

Nearly any introduction to the ideas and actions of sustainable development includes a mention of the role played in launching the global movement by the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. International forums have been a major vehicle for the pursuit of sustainability subsequent to 1992, as well, but little attention has been paid to the contribution that these global gatherings have made to the advancement of sustainability goals. This article takes up this question, with a focus on the role that major global gatherings may be playing in the pursuit of urban sustainability, specifically. To this end, we examine outcomes from the United Nations Habitat II Forum (1996, Istanbul), the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002, Johannesburg), the World Social Forum (2001–present, Porto Alegre), and the World Urban Forum 3 (2006, Vancouver), based on reports in the scholarly literature and, in the latter case, based on our own experience as urbanists in the host city of the World Urban Forum 3. For comparative purposes, we include in our review reflections on the contribution made by a United Nations effort towards sustainability, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), made without an accompanying major global gathering. While we do not find evidence of ‘Rio-scale’ success among either the forums or in the case of the MDGs, we report on process and structural innovations made with each forum as well as common critiques of all of them. A primary contribution that all the forums have made to the advancement of urban sustainability has been more clearly differentiating among sustainability's very different types of proponents and charting the landscape of barriers and opportunities for paradigm change towards sustainable urban futures.     

Suitability for practice guidelines for students: A survey of Canadian social work programmes

This paper reports on the development of a 'suitability for practice' policy in a large Canadian school of social work. Pertinent gatekeeping issues are reviewed and the results of a survey on suitability polices in Canadian social work schools are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of the University of Calgary's Faculty of Social Work Suitability Policy. This policy integrates current research on gatekeeping, the results of the Canadian schools survey and input from primary stakeholders: the students, faculty members, the professional association and the community.     

APEC茂物目标——进程与评估

APEC茂物目标是APEC进程中的重大问题,与经济技术合作一起被称为APEC的两大支柱。茂物目标于1994年确立,通过单边行动计划和集体行动计划,以APEC方式推进,并取得了很大进展。2010年21个APEC成员中有13个参加了茂物目标的评估。回顾APEC茂物目标进程,分析APEC茂物目标的评估结果,有利于加深对APEC的全面了解,继续推进APEC框架下的贸易投资自由化与便利化进程。