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This article presents a critical analysis of the challenges global social work standards present for mainland China (hereafter China) with its authoritarian political ideology that is in tension with the profession's universal values grounded in liberal individualism. China is caught between the Scylla of universal standards and Charybdis of indigenisation seeking to adapt social work to its unique sociocultural contexts. Based on our extensive literature review, we identified four challenges for Chinese social work: (1) balancing personal social services and social development, (2) negotiating global standards and local realities, (3) responding to poverty and other national social development issues and (4) pressures towards indigenisation, while remaining in step with social work's global standards. China favours the continued adaptation of imported knowledge and practice interventions within local and national sociocultural, economic and political realities. This study also highlights social work in China's urban bias and limited attention to rural issues, acknowledging this is a concern for social work even in Western contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the shifts in multidimensional discourses on international development aid policy and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on a qualitative case study of the Ugandan National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program. While Uganda has benefitted from substantial global donor funding, poverty, famine, and hunger remain widespread. This study highlights the importance of the sociocultural context for determining the success or otherwise of high-level programs at a local, rural level. The paper draws on data from individual interviews with 15 successful progressive farmers in the three rural districts of eastern Uganda that have benefited from the donor aid-driven NAADS program. Preliminary analysis of this data has identified interacting economic, political, geographic, and sociocultural factors at work in the implementation of this program. Determining 'what did and did not work' for the progressive farmers is useful not only to policy makers, but also to other smallholder farmers still entrenched in poverty and wanting to access the NAADS program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates two under-investigated, and often intersecting, frontline services accessed by unemployed people. It reports on the narratives of 32 Australian service providers working in emergency relief or employment services during 2012, including perceptions of clients' presenting issues and problems, and rationale for intervention. Workers tended to use reductionist and individualistic terms to describe complex client issues suggesting self-motivation and personal responsibility were key to gaining employment or alleviating poverty. Clients were often viewed as having the power to change their circumstances, while workers appeared unaware of their positional power and drew from dominant conservative discourse about welfarism and unemployment to fortify their compliance requirements. The findings are discussed in relation to service delivery and reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to extend the discourse on 'indigenization' from a marginal movement in social work to chart its course as a field of knowledge development that uses knowledge, training and resources that is particular to a culture and in which increasing numbers of leading researchers creatively pursue culturally and locally relevant research. It argues for the development of truly indigenized and culturally appropriate social work knowledges that are free from the restrictions and expectations of positivistic western worldviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents Midgley's theory on social development to an Australian social work audience. It explores the concept and theory of social development, examines the relationship between social work and social development, and discusses the relevance of social development to social work in Australia. The paper suggests that although social work and social development may share similar broad goals, their strategic approaches differ, with the former cast within a professional model concerned with welfare broadly conceived and the latter directly concerned with the alleviation of poverty in the less-developed parts of the world. The paper concludes with thoughts on the Australian face of social development and suggests changes that would need to be made if social work were to embrace social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little socio-economic development has occurred in most rural areas in the Limpopo Province twelve years after the advent of democracy. This paper is based on an exploratory descriptive study conducted among fourth-year students at the University of the North — now the University of Limpopo — who live in impoverished rural communities. Focus group interviews were conducted with 21 participants. The findings suggest that most community members have not benefited from income-generating projects, some of which have collapsed for various reasons. Nonetheless, the villagers' spirit of ubuntu motivates them to volunteer in projects that cater for vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly and people living with HIV and AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses community development in South Africa. South Africa, which is the most industrialized country in Africa, is often referred to as a first-world country in a third-world continent. In a country in which former apartheid rule served to "under-develop" the majority of South Africa's population while the minority portion held on to power and control through social, political and economic inequalities, the task for the new government was to "reconstruct develop". Poverty is an issue of great concern for all of South Africa. A major characteristic of urban poverty is the emergence of sprawling informal settlements comprising illegal squatters. Social and economic development was needed in South Africa. Many people live in communities with little or no infrastructure and in social conditions which perpetuate the country's problems of violence, poverty, ill health, illiteracy and a plethora of related issues faced by South Africans and the government. Community development is a method that is very attractive because it promotes empowerment and holds the people to be the key factor in their development. The concept of community development requires contributions at each level of development projects. Community development as a capacity-building process is used to help areas become self- sustaining. It involves contributions from a variety of directions.

In 1998, James Midgley issued a challenge for scholars to provide a systematic description and examination of the South African experience in implementing social development. This article attempts to meet this challenge by examining the progress of developmental welfare or social development in the first ten years of South Africa's transition to democracy under African National Congress (ANC) rule. In this article it is argued that because social development marries social and economic goals, one cannot evaluate developmental welfare or social development without examining shifts in economic policy. Thus, it also examines economic policy transitions from development, to growth, to black economic empowerment. It shows how social security has become the major poverty alleviation measure within the developmental welfare system. It acknowledges that it is tough for developmental welfare to succeed in an economic system that promotes gross income disparities and a widening gap between rich and poor. Social development needs widespread institutional support to succeed and this is unlikely to be forthcoming while there is high unemployment, low economic growth and insufficient foreign investment. However, this state of affairs is unlikely to change as long as the government intervenes in the economy, promotes black economic empowerment and centralises decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]