26 Oct 2017

In the wake of challenging times, governments must ensure that people are capacitated to enable them to help themselves, says German Ambassador and Special Representative to Southern African Development Community (SADC), Mr Ralf Breth.

Officially opening the International Social Work Conference on human security and sustainable development in Gaborone on October 25, Mr Breth said there was need to capacitate young people to deal with new challenges that threaten human security such as extreme hunger.

He said challenges such as hunger and corruption were breeding grounds for terror and organised crime.

Mr Breth noted that over 800 million people suffered from hunger, adding that economic disparities had increased in the last 20 years and that 10 per cent of mankind was in possession of 90 per cent of the wealth.

He said it was critical to deal with challenges of human security which posed a risk to global security.

He called for climate change to be addressed as a matter of urgency to curtail other factors that may arise in future as a result of increased temperatures.

“In future more than 200 million people could leave their traditional places in order to escape climate change if we don’t succeed to limit the temperature increase below two degrees Celsius,” he asserted.

Furthermore, he said poverty, violence and social injustices must be dealt with to ensure human security through crisis prevention, peaceful solutions to conflicts and promotion of global peace.

For her part, the president of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and University of Milano Bicocca, Professor Annamaria Campanini said there was need to find solutions collectively as people were living in a globalised world.

She stated that there was need for social workers, students and scholars to understand the dynamics at play because people across the globe were faced with common problems.

She said solutions must be carefully devised without creating more problems for the people.

Furthermore, she said with rising human security challenges, there was need for students to have a global understanding of issues.

“They should bear in mind that they were tackling the global social agenda cognizant of the universal values at play,” she said.

Concurring with Professor Campanini, Arizona State University, Professor James Williams said globalisation meant that human security issues should be dealt with at the global level and not at country level to effectively deal with them.

He said issues such as natural disasters, conflicts, refugees, diseases and poverty were threatening human security.

“Poverty is one of the key issues that we need to look at and examine if there is correlation between economic growth and the people,” he said.

He said a comprehensive approach to human security and sustainability would be to adopt a one health paradigm which meant that animals were safe, the environment was safe and humans were safe based on social and environmental justice.

He noted that if all nations were to strive to achieve the one health paradigm, the world would become a better place for all.

Furthermore, Professor Williams said it was pertinent to appreciate the diversity of cultures and people and to deal with togetherness without holding perceptions.

“The main problem is the skewed selection of what we know about cultures different from our own which makes people in other places seem very unusual and impossible to understand,” he said. ENDS