Globalisation and its Implications for Social Work Practice
The phenomenon of globalisation, which transformed world trade, communications and economic relations in the latter part of the 20th century, is having a similarly profound effect on social work practice of the 21st century. The policy of globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation has had different connotations for the developed and developing nations. Further the process of globalisation has also had impacts on the people of the same nation, very specially in the developing nations that are characterised by larger poverty and a wider gap between the rich and the poor and also on the mezzo and micro systems - very specially families, community groups and individuals.
This conference on ‘Global Social Work’ comes at an appropriate time for us to rethink our agenda and re-establish our strategies to meet the challenges of globalisation. The United Nations World Summit on Social Development, Copenhagen 1995, sought to promote social development on a global scale. This agenda of ‘Social Development’ is not only a way of addressing social problems of developing countries, but calls for a commitment of individual nations to incorporate key issues of social development in their agenda. This also calls for us Social Work educators and practitioners to confront issues of globalisation and work towards a major paradigm shift that will enable all people to participate effectively in the life of the community. In spite of economic growth, the problem of poverty, deprivation, violation of rights, oppression and hatred continue to characterise our society and hence Social Work needs to be an instrument of Social Transformation. This paper would critically analyse the implications of globalisation and look at strategies to address these issues from various economic and socio-demographic levels.