The Sustainable Development Goals From a Social Work Perspective in the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is an ecosocial and global crisis caused by human actions. With the pandemic, poverty and inequalities have gradually deepened; in particular, the acceleration of digitalization in the pandemic period has revealed digital inequalities. In addition, problems such as poverty, climate change, global warming, and social and environmental sustainability concerns constitute obstacles to achieving sustainable development goals. Social workers play an active role in the achievement of sustainable development goals; as such, they should also be able to critically evaluate the associated processes and results. In such an evaluation, it is important that social workers adopt an ecosocial approach that centers on people and nature. Based on this, in this study, sustainable development and related goals are evaluated from a critical point of view, discussing them in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of this analysis, the degrowth approach is recommended as an alternative to sustainable development.