WSWD 2025: Caring Societies for All: Advancing Social Rights for Persons with Disabilities

World Social Work Day has been celebrated around the globe since 1983. This year, UNRISD teamed up once again with the Geneva and Fribourg Schools of Social Work and its international partners to mark the Day at UN in Geneva. World Social Work Day aims not just to showcase the achievements of social work and increase its visibility, but also to highlight its synergies with social development: shared commitments to social justice, inclusive development and human rights.

World Social Work Day at the UN in Geneva 2025 aims to make a contribution to the Second World Summit for Social Development exploring pathways to expand social rights for persons living with disabilities and to create a caring society. Globally, an estimated 1.3 billion people experience disabilities (WHO 2023), a situation that is further exacerbated for people exposed to multiple marginalizations based on class, gender and sexual orientation, age, race, ethnicity or religion, migrant or employment status or location.

WSWD 2025 at the UN in Geneva will be convened with three objectives:

Raise awareness on the rights of persons with disabilities and the role social workers play in supporting them and their families, creating more inclusive and caring societies;

Identify current challenges faced by people with disabilities and caregivers at local and global levels, and ways to address them;

Contribute to a call for action for policy actors gathering at the WSSD in Qatar on how to create inclusive care systems and ensure that persons with disabilities can develop their full potential and receive the support they need.

The celebration of WSWD 2025 will include contributions from social workers and scholars based in various regions of the world. Through keynote speeches, interactive discussions and a policy roundtable, we will explore pathways to more just and sustainable shared futures and discuss how social work can collaborate with the UN to promote the rights of persons living with disabilities and build comprehensive care systems.