University Report: International Social Work and Global Equality

This report delves into the crucial concepts of global equality and liberty, highlighting their significance as fundamental rights within any democratic nation. It examines the application of fairness and justice in social policies, particularly focusing on gender inequality. The report provides an in-depth analysis of policies, programs, and strategies designed to promote equity and development on both national and international levels, with specific case studies from the Asia-Pacific region. It explores the interplay of social growth, cultural influences, and the role of administrators in upholding social equality. The report also addresses key global issues such as women's empowerment, gender equality, healthcare, and human rights, discussing relevant policies and programs like the Gender in Development Programme, and strategies employed by the United Nations to achieve sustainable development goals. The report also analyzes the Asia-Pacific region’s economic progress and inequality challenges.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL WORK: GLOBAL EQUALITY
INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL WORK: GLOBAL EQUALITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Equality and liberty are two most valued fundamental rights of the citizens of any nation.
The concepts of equality and liberty may be identified as the two basic pillars of democracy
Social equality may be defined as a concept in which fairness and justice concepts are applied to
social policies. Gender inequality refers to the unequal treatment of people totally or partially on
the basis of their gender. This issue stems from differences in the gender roles as defined by the
society. The following report attempts to throw some light on the concepts of change and growth
as related to development of the society on both national and international levels. The report
undertakes and critically examines some case studies of the Asia-Pacific region.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Discussion............................................................................................................................3
Policies.............................................................................................................................4
Programs..........................................................................................................................5
Strategies..........................................................................................................................7
Asia-Pacific region..........................................................................................................8
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Equality and liberty are two most valued fundamental rights of the citizens of any nation.
The concepts of equality and liberty may be identified as the two basic pillars of democracy. Any
democratic nation should not tolerate any discrimination of its citizens and should treat all the
country equally. Social equality may be defined as a concept in which fairness and justice
concepts are applied to social policies. The following report deals with the major global issues of
the present days. This report critically discusses the policies, programs and strategies with
regards to the equity and development around the globe. The report undertakes and critically
examines some case studies of the Asia-Pacific region. The following report attempts to throw
some light on the concepts of change and growth as related to development of the society on
both national and international levels.
Discussion
Social growth and development may be referred to as the process whereby the feelings,
thoughts and behaviors of a person are affected by the presence of any other person. This also
refers to the ways in which this process undergoes change with the passage of time. Lev
Vygotsky, one of the main theorists of the theory of social growth, in the theory of social
constructivism argues that a major factor in the development of a child is the culture that the
child is exposed to. According to the famous theorist, development always moves to an
individual level from social levels.
The social equality concepts may be traced back to the to the works by ancient Greek
philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Though definitions of the concept may vary from person to
person but the central idea of the definitions remain constant on the issue of fairness and

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justness. In modern times, equity involves the role of administers. These public administers are
responsible for looking into the fact that the social services are being dispensed equably among
all the members. In order to keep up to their responsibilities, global equality administers have
resorted to certain policies, programs and strategies to address to the issue of global equality and
development.
Social equality needs the legal enforcement of social classes or boundaries of caste to be
absent. In order to execute the concept properly, all discrimination that is motivated by some
inviolable part of the concerned person must be avoided. The citizens must not be discriminated
based on their caste, creed, sex, religion, age, race, origin, sexual orientation, property, language,
health, convictions, income and opinions. The major global issues that can be highlighted in the
present day scenario are women empowerment, gender equality, aged population growth,
medical issues in health care such as AIDS. There are issues regarding the rights of children,
decolonization, hunger issues, human rights and population, refugees of various countries
(Un.org, 2017).
Policies
The most raging issue at the present moment is the issue of women liberation and
empowerment. Women empowerment has turned into an important topic of discussion
worldwide. It points to approaches that hold good for other belittled genders as well. Women
economic empowerment refers to women’s ability to enjoy controlling their rights and
benefitting from their own resources. It further refers to the ability of women to improve their
economic well-being and status.
There has been adopted many policies to address the issues of social development. In this
particular issue of women empowerment and liberation, various methods towards tackling the

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issue are taken into account. Women, in many of the underdeveloped and developing countries,
do not have the legal rights to own any piece of land. As a measure to empower women in those
countries, they should be allowed to own a piece of land. There are policies that have been
formulated on various other social issues that need immediate attention like the issue of gender
equality and food-related issues.
Gender inequality refers to the unequal treatment of people totally or partially on the
basis of their gender. This issue stems from differences in the gender roles as defined by the
society. It depends on the socially constructed or empirically grounded distinction on the basis of
the gender of a person. Gender equality is a much needed founding ground for a peaceful,
sustainable and prosperous world (Un.org, 2017). It is not only a basic human right. In case of
gender related issues, there are policies of the UNICEF that deal with the issues of equality
between boys and girls. These policies of the United Nations aim to provide for educational
access to all the global citizens irrespective of their gender (UN, 2015). It also aims to provide
equal access to all the citizens of the world with an equal access to health care, representations in
economic and political processes involving decision making. Gender equality will boost
sustainable economics and be beneficial to humanity and societies at large.
Programs
The Gender in Development Programme or GIDP advises, assists and facilitates the
equality policies, practice and dialogue and helps in empowering women (Un.org, 2017). These
programs are implemented in the countries around the world. In the eastern countries, there are
found huge implementations of the women empowerment policies. The governing bodies of the
countries try to ensure that all the citizens of the country have access to educational institutions
irrespective of their gender and caste. These programs tend to look into the issue of women

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having lesser access to basic as well as higher education, greater risks on the field of health and
safety issues and lower representation in the political issues. Women should be guaranteed rights
and be given opportunities to achieve their ultimate potential. It is necessary for attaining the
goals of global equality and wider ranges of international development.
The programs aim to provide a boost to a woman’s decision-making authority, sense of
being self-worthy, access towards resources and opportunities, the authority and control over
happenings both inside and outside the house. It also tries to make a change in a woman’s ability
to affect the changes that take place around her. These programs focus mainly on educating the
female members of the society. These programs are implemented mainly in the developing
countries where there is a higher percentage of girls being out-of-school as compared to the
number of boys. In the developing countries, the number of girls not attending schools is
approximately a quarter of the population. Another raging issue is the health care issue of
women. The issue of healthcare and safety has become a real concern in the present world. In
most of the cases, women have been suffering from HIV or AIDS. This is due to lesser
opportunities of education regarding health issues, inequality of power in the sexual relationships
and the result of violence based on gender (Peacecorps.gov, 2017). In many of the developing
countries, women have little access to services related to prenatal and newborn care. There is a
much lesser percentage of women who have access to political and economic empowerment.
Despite the world population of women being more than half of the total population, the wealth
owned by them is a meagre one percent of the total wealth of the world. The women are mostly
involved in non-paid work in the households. They even lack the right to own property in some
parts of the world. There are many underdeveloped countries where women lack the right to
inherit or own property, they do not have access to earning their own money or obtaining credit

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from any source. Women across the world are subjected to discrimination at their workplaces in
case of moving up in their concerned organizations. The participation of women in politics all
over the world is required to maintain and achieve true democracy and equality on the terms of
gender (Bexell, 2012). Women have always been the decision-makers who remain
underrepresented both in the public and domestic affairs.
Strategies
The United Nations commission have outlined a powerful action set in order to help
attain the set goals towards women empowerment and attaining global equality on global gender
issues. The 60th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women will focus firmly on the
implementation of the agreement. The key challenges that are to be addressed in the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development are poverty, inequality and the change in climate. The
goals of sustainable development that are undertaken can be achieved if the issue of gender
equality and women empowerment are addressed.
The issues that are to be looked into constitute the main issues of the women
empowerment. It aims to equalize the number of men and women in the labor markets. This
would, in turn, affect the global economy thereby increasing the annual global GDP by the year
2025 (Unwomen.org, 2017; UN, 2015). The presence of women at the peace forums increase the
probability of a long lasting peace agreement by considerable measures. The women need to be
educated in order to help in the increase of the mortality rate of the newborns. There has been
commendable progress on the issues of gender inequality and women rights since the Beijing
Conference but there still remains scope for improvement (Haack, 2014). The commission has
also undertaken strategies to help eradicate violence against women. The commission has
undertaken steps and implemented measures so as to end the violence that keeps affecting

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women at large. These violent activities also come with huge amounts of economic costs that the
society has to incur.
Asia-Pacific region
Asia-Pacific region is the region of the world that refers to the part of the world that is
situated near the western part of the Pacific Ocean. This area varies in its size depending on the
context based on which it is referred to. The region generally is inclusive of east, south and south
Asia along with Oceania countries like Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia. Some other
countries of the American coast of the eastern Pacific Ocean like Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru,
United States and Russia may also be referred to as inclusive of the region due to the inclusion of
these countries in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
The main issue that these region faces in terms of global inequality is the issue of
progress on the terms of economy (Adb.org, 2017). Though the economies of the Asia-Pacific
have experienced a rise in the per capita income and have reduced the extreme poverty issues to
almost half of what it was (Adb.org, 2017; Park & Mercado Jr, 2015). There are reports that
suggest that the gap between the rich and poor have increased in many economies thereby
worsening the situations. There are countries that include population with lowest the shares of
the total national income or consumption belonged to the poorest sections of people
(Eastasiaforum.org. 2017; Coady & Gupta, 2012). These countries have high Gini coefficients, a
measure for inequality, like the People’s Republic of China (Adb.org, 2017; Woo & Sung,
2013). There has been observed a reduction in poverty, rates of mortality of children under five
years, and in the average schooling years. There has been a decrement in the child mortality rate,
though the reduction in the number of children that are underweight is yet to be witnessed.

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Studies suggest that the number of people under the poverty level have been over the number of
total employed people in the country.
Conclusion
Thus, from the above report, it may be suggested that in order to attain global equality,
many more hurdles are to be overcome. The issues that need much attention are the issues
regarding women empowerment and gender equality. It may sound to be a Utopian concept but
global equality is attainable if all the nations of the world come together to address the causes
that prove to be hindrances to the attainment of equality in the world. The world will comprise of
people from different races and cultures and in order to make living sustainable in this world, the
diversifications have to be maintained. Developments and changes in the various regions of
conflict may be brought about but not by compromising on the issues that deem a certain number
of people to be separate from the rest of the world on the basis of their gender or race or religion.

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