Promoting Social Development: Building a Professional Social Work Association in Namibia

The Challenge to Promote Social and Economic Equality in Namibia Through Social Work

“…The need for coordination to improve service delivery is clearly reflected in the following views: The job description from Ministry 1 listed working in professional isolation as an adverse working condition, thus pointing to the poor working relationships amongst social workers in various social welfare organisations. This view is supported by Ananias and Lightfoot (2012), who report that social workers in Namibia have traditionally had little social cohesion. The poor collaboration and coordination in social welfare service delivery is often attributed to the absence of a national social welfare policy framework (Republic of Namibia, 2008).…”

“…The finding that social workers in Namibia are not completely familiar with developmental social work is also noted by Ananias and Lightfoot (2012). Whilst Namibia has long subscribed to the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, UNAM only integrated a social development module into its Social Work curriculum in 2010 and in particular only on an introductory level in the second year of study.…”

“…This finding demonstrates that social welfare organisations have not yet come on board with the government decision to adopt a developmental social work focus in line with the United Nations Copenhagen agreement (MoHSS in Ananias & Lightfoot, 2012). Across all four participants' job descriptions, the term developmental social work was mentioned only once and this was in the job description, from Ministry 1.…”

“…The poor collaboration and coordination in social welfare service delivery is often attributed to the absence of a national social welfare policy framework (Republic of Namibia, 2008). In addition, there is no overarching coordinating body mandated to oversee social welfare provisioning in the nongovernmental sector; thus this sector also exhibits a fragmented working system that often results in the inevitable duplication of programmes (Republic of Namibia, 2008 According to Ananias and Lightfoot, (2012) the Namibia Social Workers Association (NASWA) was re-established in 2008 after social workers felt that a professional organisation would be necessary to promote cohesion and to lobby for social workers to practise developmental social work. However, NASWA has since its re-establishment has struggled to play an active role in this regard amidst a very small social work population that is scattered across a geographically vast country.…”

“…Whilst Namibia has long subscribed to the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, UNAM only integrated a social development module into its Social Work curriculum in 2010 and in particular only on an introductory level in the second year of study. However, outside of the formal social work training offered at UNAM, there is a lack of continual professional development training in developmental social work and social justice in Namibia (Ananias & Lightfoot, 2012). This lack of developmental social work training may explain why social workers in Namibia often do not engage in macro-level advocacy, social justice and human rights-based practice, which are all critical when promoting social and economic equality.…”