Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development 2020-2030
GLOBAL AGENDA JULY 2026 and Social Work Day 2024
Theme 4: 2024 - 2026

Buen Vivir: Shared future for transformative change
Background
Social work operates in a world in crisis which is evidenced by thousands of people who diedaily from violent conflict; millions who are displaced because of wars and violence or climate
warming and environment destruction; persisting poverty, increasing inequality, andgovernments who choose “competition over collaboration and sovereignty over solidarity”1.
Linked to the crisis is the impact of the economic recession and politically driven decisionsand actions. To effectively respond to this crisis, social work needs new approaches, actions,actors, movements, and platforms for transformative change which is community-led andinformed by indigenous wisdom. New ways of doing include escalating micro level practice tothe meso and macro levels; thus, bridging micro and macro practice to bring about structuralchange. We can achieve this by embracing the principle of Buen Vivir2, meaning that true wellbeing is only possible by being part of a community that lives in harmony with nature and work
together in achieving balanced development.

To contribute to structural change, it is important for social work to recognise that sustainablechange has resulted from mass movements where diverse populations have worked together
for common interests. It is also important to recognise that all political actions are underpinned
by cultural beliefs and worldviews that need to be considered in co-building an eco-socialworld. Furthermore, that local, and global expertise, action, and support are required to find
new ways to respond to the crisis while co-designing and co-building policies, practices andactions embedded in inclusion, intergenerational respect, and mutual understanding, but also
in co-creating conditions for peace, balanced development, upholding of human rights, andsustainable development. New ways of doing include the use of political methods to elicit
social change. However, social workers generally find it difficult to make political statements
for different reasons and even more so to challenge and act against political decisions andactivities. Hence, social workers must globally unite and share methods of transformative

1 From The People’s Charter for an Eco-Social World (2022)

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change. It requires a focus on what unite the profession of social work and social development
as opposed to what divides us, acknowledging differences while agreeing on our shared
futures. We can achieve this vision by embracing the value of Buen Vivir.

Buen Vivir (Spanish translation of the Quechua people's 'Sumak Kawsay') is an Indigenous
philosophical principle and worldview rooted in the human being as a part of a natural andsocial environment. Its goals are the "satisfaction of needs, the achievement of a dignified
quality of life and death, to love and to be loved, the healthy flourishing of all in peace andharmony with nature, the indefinite perpetuation of human cultures. Buen Vivir implies having
free time for contemplation and personal emancipation, enabling the expansion and flourishingof people’s liberties, opportunities, capabilities and potentialities so as to simultaneously allow
society, specific territories, different collective identities, and each individual, understood bothin universal and relative terms, to achieve their objectives in life (without causing any kind of
material or subjective dominance over any other individual)" (National Plan for Good Living
2009-2013, Bolivia).

Buen Vivir proposes the collective fulfilment of human beings through a harmonious,
balanced life, based on ethical values, as opposed to the economy-oriented approach,focused on the production of monetary valuable goods.
This life principle, rooted in the LAC Indigenous cosmovision and ancestral knowledge, isbased on:(a) relationality -the interconnection between all the elements of a whole;(b) reciprocity, the reciprocal relationship between the worlds above, below, now,between human beings and nature, a sort of co-participation;(c) correspondence, which refers to how the elements of reality correspond to eachother in a harmonious way;(d) complementarity, which is based on the fact that opposites can be complementary,since nothing is superfluous.

We acknowledge the Buen Vivir translation confirmation of the global agenda theme by ourLatin American and Caribbean (LAC) colleagues and the endorsement thereof by the IFSW
Indigenous Commission.

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The Global Agenda is a joint initiative of the International Association of Schools of Social
Work (IASSW - President Annamaria Campanini), the International Council on Social Welfare(ICSW-President Sang-Mok Suh) and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSWPresident Joachim Momba)

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