The proposal was made during an online meeting, held on July 7, by the Working Group for the ASEAN Declaration on Promotion of Social Work.

The declaration aims to ensure the provision of services and support to disadvantaged groups in society.

It is scheduled to be adopted at the 37th ASEAN Summit in November 2020.

At the meeting, Viet Nam stressed that ASEAN countries were facing common challenges, including negligence and exploitation of children, poverty and violence against women and children, aging populations, migration, youth unemployment as well as natural and man-made disasters.

The challenges were becoming more complicated, requiring efforts in professionalising social workers to meet the needs of vulnerable groups.

However, the importance of social work had yet to be recognised, although many people need the support of social workers to deal with difficulties in their life and support them to access services.

Therefore, to fill the gap, the declaration should be issued, aiming to become a common framework to promote and enhance social work at the regional level; providing a common set of priorities for strengthening social work in ASEAN, building and facilitating strategic co-operation between ASEAN member states in the field of social work, and gaining a commitment and a common understanding of the role and value of social workers.

The commitment was expected to focus on laws and policies; procedures and standards; human resource development; developing a system of social work services and partnerships.

Preparation for building the declaration would receive technical assistance from the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The ASEAN Social Work Consortium had been assigned to be the focal point in building the declaration.

Also at the meeting, the working group discussed priorities and activities of the United Nations to implement the declaration in the future and proposed the next roadmap./.