Building Resilient Communities to Promote Equity and Social Inclusion for the Attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs)
International Social Work and Social Development Conference
16th to 18th June 2025, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda
The Conference seeks to galvanise academic knowledge, debate and critical enquiry
and engagements on the topical issues of equity, social justice and inclusion within the
framework of the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while
foregrounding practice knowledge as experienced by development actors across the
globe.
The Conference further seeks to enhance local content and scholarship through the
applicability of generated knowledge to addressing local and regional development
problems, within the confluence of the greater agenda for social work and social
development and its emphasis on social change. This no doubt has ramification for the
application of good practices in social development interventions in other contexts
within Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas and contribute to evolution of global
social work/social development practice which promotes contextual specificity and
relevance without removing the need for international networking and collaborative
engagement.
This conference comes at the backdrop of the NORAD supported RESILIENT Project,
implemented since January 2021 by a consortium comprising the University of Agder
Norway as the lead agency, Makerere University’s Department of Social Work and
Social Administration, University of Rwanda, and the Institute of Social Work,
Tanzania. The project seeks to enhance the participation of the vulnerable and
marginalized members of society in the south in the development process itself. For
more details on the conference and the ongoing project please visit the following
website: https://resilient.uia.no/about-resilient/.
The RESILIENT PROJECT is now pleased to invite you to submit abstracts to be
presented at the International Social Work and Social Development Conference taking
place from 16th to 18th June 2025, at Makerere University, Kampala – Uganda. We are
particularly interested in presentations and contributions that reflect perspectives on
social justice, equity and inclusion within the framework of attainment of the SDGs
within developing countries.
Conference Justification
The proposed conference is conceptualised within the indigenisation and
decolonisation model of social work which seeks to promote social development
through culturally and contextually relevant interventions from the grassroots. The
major thrust of the indigenisation and decolonisation perspective is based on the notion
that the process of social development can only be meaningful and effective if it
provides context-specific and tangible responses to the given social problems in a
particular local or regional context (whether it be Africa, Asia, Latin America or any
other setting). These responses must be related to the socio-cultural realities in that
region (Twikirize and Spitzer, 20191). The United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 20072) unequivocally recognises that respect
for indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices contributes to sustainable
and equitable development and proper management of the environment.
The Declaration of the United Nations World Summit for Social Development in
Copenhagen in 1995 and the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
in 2000, and their successor SDGs in 20153 all call out the need for role players such as
social work and social development practitioners to review their strategies in addressing
social injustices, poverty, social exclusion and inequalities. Within this context, social
work is well positioned to explore more innovative ways to reach out to the poor and
vulnerable and in doing so contribute more efficiently to addressing social exclusion
and social inequality and to directly contribute to the realization of a number of SDGs
(3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16 and 17). Moreover SDG progress monitoring reports seem to
suggest that much work needs to be done to attain these targets by 2030 (Halkos and
Gkampura, 20214).
1 Twikirize, Janestic and Spitzer, Helmut (2019) Social work practice in Africa: indigenous and innovative approaches. Kampala: Fountain Publishers
3 See https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
4 Halkos, George & Gkampoura, Eleni-Christina, 2021. “Where do we stand on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals? An overview on progress,” Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, 70(C), pages 94-122.
Conference objectives
The conference aims to:
1. Bring together social work and social development practitioners, researchers,
students, educators and policy makers in order to interact, learn and share each
other’ experiences on pertinent social development issues.
2. Generate topical resolutions that can be utilised by local and central
governments and institutions in the global South and North to further advance
the debate/efforts regarding the attainments of SDGs.
Conference Themes
We welcome submission on any of the following themes, broadly conceived:
1. Child Wellbeing and Child Protection
2. Youth Participation and Inclusion
3. Older Persons, Social Protection and Socio-economic Participation
4. North-South and South-South Partnership and Collaborations in Social
Development
5. Green Social Work and Environment
6. University and Community Engagement/ Role of Universities in Community
Transformation.
7. Migration, Refugees and Development
8. Civil Society, NGOs, Social Work and Development Practice
9. The role of Social Work in Emergencies, Pandemic Crises and Conflict
Conference level
This is an International Conference targeting academics, development practitioners,
policy makers, students, researchers and the general public from all continents across
the global North and South. We however strongly encourage participants from the
global South and the Africa region to submit abstracts and papers for the conference.
Specific Instruction to Authors:
- The abstract submitted should not be more than 250 words
- Nature of presentation: Posters, oral presentations, panels and workshop
formats - All abstracts should be submitted in Microsoft word format
- The font type should be Times New Roman 12pt, 1.5 spacing
- The presenting author should be presented first and underlined
- Indicate the institutional affiliation and the country
- Indicate the Email address of the presenting/corresponding author
- All abstracts should be submitted in English
- Themes of the submission should also be indicated.
- Abstracts can be sent via Email to: resilientconference2025@mak.ac.ug
copied to ainembabazi.dorynn@gmail.com
Potential benefits and Impacts of the conference
- International networking and benchmarking on social development issues
generally - Opportunity to influence social agendas within the global development
landscape and social programming through impacting the regional and
international social work associations and the United Nations agencies .
Conference Keynote Speakers
1. Prof. Antoinette Lombard, IASW President and Professor of Social Work at
University of Pretoria
2. Prof. Jeannette Bayisenge, former Minister of Gender and Family Protection
in Rwanda and Professor of Social Work
3. Prof. Ann Christin E. Nilsen, PI of the RESILIENT project and Professor of
Sociology at the University of Agder, Norway
4. Dr Zena Mnasi Mabeyo, National Coordinator for Tanzania in the
RESILIENT Project and Head of Department of Psychology at the Institute of
Social Work, Tanzania
Registration fees: With $100 registration fees for non-Africa based participants
$30 for Africa-based participants and $10 for students
Deadline for submission: 1st March 2025
Date for confirmation of acceptance of abstracts: 30th March 2025
