Social work is contextual yet increasingly internationalized. The development of Global Agenda in 2012 by the IASSW, ICSW and IFSW gave educators and practitioners an opportunity to reflect on challenges of social work education and the profession in their respective countries. The current article discusses the key factors that confront and influence social work education and practice in the Asian region. The article brings out deep-rooted perceptions amongst educators in the region. The authors endeavour to present select views of social work educators from South Asian countries and suggest possible steps to realize the four goals of Global Agenda in the context of those countries.

South Asian governments have initiated political reforms engaging in rhetoric that resonates with the paradigms of good governance and empowerment of people. This article, applying a political social work framework, analyses reform policy in Pakistan and India in South Asia. By doing so, the article investigates the politics of local governance reforms in Pakistan and India within the context of domestic politics, institutional power and dynamics, and bureaucratic traditions and civil society activism. The article argues for renewed South Asian political social work that catalyzes robust local governance through citizen participation, resulting in the empowerment of people.

This paper discusses the evolution of social work education in Nepal. The history of social work education and training in Nepal is rather nascent. Imparting social work education and training is a challenging task in Nepal due to the ongoing political instability, multi-cultural issues and lack of social work educators, and the lack of a professional association, in addition to the lack of government recognition for the social work profession in the country. The paper is divided into four sections. After a general introduction, Section 2 discusses the evolution of social work education in the context of the development of higher education in Nepal. The paper describes Nepal and its changing social context, the challenges for social work and how social work education is meeting these challenges. Nepal's efforts to realize indigenous and international practices of social work education are discussed in the third section. The paper indentifies these gaps and a Nepalese model of social work is presented in Section 4. The paper is written on the basis of the author's personal narrative of many years' work in Nepal in order to start a discussion on indigenous and international social work perspectives along with challenges for social work education in the context of the current global climate of social, political and economic changes in order to draw lessons for Nepal and South Asia.

Disasters around the world disrupt the lives of millions of people, especially pushing many children into armed conflict, prostitution, drug trafficking and other dangerous situations, resulting in violation of their rights. Approaches to disaster management continue to be largely technology-centred, top-down and isolated from human development processes in the region. The rescue–relief–rehabilitation (3R) model of interventions largely results in treating children as beneficiaries and not as actors. This article offers possible lessons for Africa, based on the South Asian experience of how children’s rights are (not) practised in the context of disasters.

South Asia consists of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Maldives. All eight countries have a colonial history where Western influence has been very strong. Based on the knowledge and experience of the authors, this paper will involve discussion of social work education and practice in three of them: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. For each country, there will be an analysis of a history of social work education and practice, social work as a profession, decolonizing social work, and barriers to decolonizing social work.