The International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and UNAIDS have published a new joint report, Getting to zero: global social work responds to HIV, a collection of stories and articles showing how social workers are central to the AIDS response around the world.
Launched at an event in Geneva, Switzerland, on World Social Work Day 2017 attended by UNAIDS and the President of IASSW, Annamaria Campanini, the report highlights how social workers connect people living with HIV with essential services and make services work for people living with HIV.
The report brings together 18 different contributions on the response to HIV from countries as diverse as Brazil, Ethiopia, the United States of America and Zimbabwe. AIDS is as much a social challenge as a medical challenge, and social workers have been part of the response to HIV since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. The contributions describe the innovative work of social workers around the world, which can be adapted to other countries and communities towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
UNAIDS is working to support countries in their efforts to expand community-led HIV service delivery to cover at least 30% of all service delivery by 2030, as set out in the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in June 2016.
