IFSW Organizes a Side Event at the High Level Political Forum 2026, at the UN Headquarters, New York
On July 8, 2026, IFSW UN Commission, North America convened an online side-event during the UN High Level Forum on Sustainable Development: “Social Workers as partners in advancing innovative, inclusive, and coordinated community solutions that tackle social, health, economic, and environmental factors for sustainable development”. Panelists include representatives from UN agencies, civil society organizations, social workers, and people with lived experience presenting on community driven efforts that forward the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, with a focus on SDG 1, 3, 5, 11, and 17.
Karina Andrea Mancini, Argentine Social Worker and Regional Commissioner for Latin America and the Caribbean, IFSW UN Commission said: “It is critical to understand the links of working conditions in care professions with the sustainability of social protection systems. IFSW has a real opportunity to continue our work with the ILO to elevate recognition of social workers an important partners in care work”
Massoud Ayoubi, Director of the Afghanistan Social Workers Professional Organization and IFSW Representative to the UN, Asia-Pacific said: Social worker are aligned with the 2030 agenda, and that for SDG policy to be achieved, we must build trust at the community level, commit to creating the systems required to reach people, and ensure that professional social workers are implementation partners”.
Shanti Taman, Chairperson of the Samyukta Safai Jagaran (SaSaJa) Cooperative and Yamuna Ghal, Nepal Center for Contemporary Research said “SaSaJa was started in response to poverty, social exclusion, occupational risks, gender discrimination. The lack of recognition within urban solid waste management systems led to the creation of Nepal’s first and only waste workers’ cooperative committed to advancing gender justice, building sustainable cities, and inclusive development”
Zoe Brent, Senior Research Specialist for the Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) Programme at UNRISD said: “Care-Centered Just Transitions defines care work as ‘paid and unpaid, formal or informal activities that produce, sustain and provide for human life and the environment and that collectively we must work to integrate care into just transition strategies through linking care work, access to care, and care as a structuring principle.”
Evelyn Tomaszewski, Regional Commissioner North America, said: “ Collectively, the speakers reflected The Peoples’s Charter Co-building a New Eco-Social World: Leaving No One Behind, providing actions we can all take together to promote in key areas outlined in the People’s Charter: Ecological integrity and Economic reform through challenging exploitation through creative innovation solutions; Employment and work that stressed the importance of s investing in the social work profession as care providers; State social protection that note the critical role of social worker as partners in building social cohesion that can further public investment in wellbeing; and International solidarity that is supported by social works commitment to co-building local to state to international change through community-led and community engaged professional social work.
Event organizers: Elaine Congress, Siu-Ming Kwok, Patricia Saleeby, Andre Stevenson, Evelyn Tomaszewski.
Source and further information:
The program (with speaker defined translations in the chat) can be found HERE
The 2026 side-event context and content built upon the IFSW 2025 Side Event to the UN HLPF on Sustainable Development, entitled: Co-building equitable care and support systems through inclusive policy and community-based practice in support of SDG 3, SDG 8, and SDG 17. The recording can be found HERE
Submitted by: Evelyn P. Tomaszewski, Regional Commissioner, IFSW UN Commission, North America