Leading the International Consortium for Social Development and making a global impact

Impact summary

According to Charles Sturt ethos of Yindyamarra Winhanganha, ‘the wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in’, and one of the strategic focus areas, social responsibility, I lead the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD) as its President, since 2017. This is an international and interdisciplinary professional body in existence for nearly fifty years and this is the first time the president was elected outside the US. In recognition of my academic and professional contributions, I was nominated by the US academics, and elected to this position in 2017. Heeding my dedicated services to the organisation, ICSD members re-elected me as the president of the ICSD for the second term, from 2021 to 2025. In this role, I have made impact on the organisation, and through its activities, I have made the impact relating to social development globally. As per member expectations, a strategic plan was developed for the ICSD. Under my leadership, four international conferences in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Austria and South Africa were organised in collaboration with various organisations and academics and practitioners to spread the knowledge of social development and the sustainable development goals globally. In addition to delivering presidential welcome and keynote addresses and conferring presidential awards for distinguished social development scholars and practitioners, I successfully initiated and completed digitisation of 44 volumes of the ICSD’s journal, Social Development Issues, which now can be freely accessed by anyone in the world for teaching training and research purposes, particularly in developing countries, where such resources are limited. See https://www.socialdevelopment.net/full-article-access-for-members/ The ICSD’s new website was developed (https://www.socialdevelopment.net/), which has recorded more than 480,000 views. By constituting a committee and by being a member of the committee, I contributed to developing a Statement of Ethics for the ICSD. In addition, my activities under this leadership role have been covered in both print and electronic media. (E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oOPpsZ-fM4&ab_channel=IslamicUniversity%2CKushtia

Research and engagement activities leading to impact

Research engagement activities included:
Jointly conducting a survey of ICSD members and analysing the data and writing a report.
Conducting and coordinating an international workshop for ICSD members to discuss the survey findings.
Using the findings, developing a strategic plan for the organisation in consultation with the ICSD Executive Council members.
Supporting the 7th ICSD Asia Pacific conference held in collaboration with Islamic University Bangladesh in 2019 and delivering a keynote address and offering media interviews. The theme was ‘social unrest, peace and development’.
Negotiating and organising 21th Biennial international conference in collaboration with University of Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2019. The theme of the conference was ‘Strengthening Social Development to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’.
Supporting the 8th ICSD Asia Pacific conference held in collaboration with the National Association of Professional Social Workers in India and Viswa-Bharati University, in 2021. The theme of the conference was ‘Social Cohesion, Collective Responsibility and Social Work Profession. It also included making a panel presentation with CSU colleagues.
Negotiating and organising 22th Biennial international conference in collaboration with the Centre for Social Development in Africa, the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2021. The theme of the conference was ‘poverty, inequality and social development: innovations around the world’.
Organising and launching the digitized ICSD’s journal, Social Development Issues, 1977–2021.
Supporting the 9th ICSD Asia Pacific conference held in collaboration with the School of Global Studies, Thammasat University, Thailand in 2022 and delivering a keynote address. Its theme was ‘Sustainable Development Efforts in Times of Crises’.
In all these engagement activities participants from universities, governments and nongovernment organisations were involved. Partial funding support was provided by the ILWS for some of the activities.

Research outputs associated with the impact

These research outputs relate to the theme of the conferences and my role as the president of the ICSD and a researcher in the ILWS. Partial funding support was provided by the ILWS for some of the activities.
Pawar, M. (2022). Sostenibilità Ambientale (Sustainable Environment). In Annamaria Campanini (Ed.), Nuovo Dizionario di Servizio Sociale (New Dictionary of Social Service). Carocci, Roma, pp.679-684.
Pawar, M. and Androff, D. (2021). International Consortium for Social Development: Members’ views and future directions. Social Development Issues, 43 (1), p. 1-28.

Pawar, M., O’Sullivan, D., Cash, B., Culas, R., Langat, K., Manning, A., Mungai, N., Rafferty, J. Rajamani, S. and Ward, W. (2020). The Sustainable Development Goals: An Australian response. The International Journal of Community and Social Development, 2(4), p. 374-393. https://doi.org/10.1177/2516602620983716

Pawar, M (2021). President’s Address, 22nd Biennial International Conference of the International Consortium for Social Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 13–16 July 2021. Social Development Issues, Volume 43, Number 3, pp. 94-101. https://drive.google.com/file/d/15r5cC0AS-Mv1abCGoVaCJ02wYRh7ScLE/view
Sarkar, A. K., Rahman, M. and Pawar, M. (2021). 7th ICSD AP conference in Bangladesh: Some experiences and reflections for the way forward. In Pawar, M., COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact on and Implications for community and social development. SAGE.
Pawar, M. (2019) Social development and economic development: A case for integration. ICSW Global Cooperation Newsletter, January 2019. Pp. 2-6. http://www.icsw.org/images/docs/GlobalNewsletter/2019/2019_01_Global_Cooperation_Eng_January.pdf
Pawar, M. (2018). President's Address, 20th Biennial International Symposium of the International Consortium for Social Development, Zagreb, Croatia, July 7–11, 2017. Social Development Issues, Volume 40, Number 1, February 2018, pp. 1-4(4).

Pawar, M. (2017). International Consortium for Social Development, Asia-Pacific Branch, 2004–2016: President’s recounts, reflections and foreflections. Social Development Issues. 39 (2), p. 1-30.

Statement of Ethics for the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD). Social Development Issues, 43(1) 2021, pp. 94-98.

Researcher involvement

My role as the President of the ICSD involved coordinating and meeting with the ICSD Executive Council members and board members from different countries to take decisions about the activities of the ICSD. With ICSD colleagues I also negotiated and coordinated with the ICSD conference hosts in Bangladesh, Indonesia and South Africa. I travelled to Bangladesh and Indonesia to support conference organisers and to perform my presidential role and address participants from universities, governments and nongovernment organisations. Host organisations were significantly engaged in organising the conferences, working with participants, including field visits.
I also applied for the ILWS internal grant to conduct workshops to discuss researching and implementing the sustainable development goals. With CSU workshop participants, we reviewed the Australian Senate Enquiry report relating the sustainable development goals and our review is published as a co-authored article as stated above.

Outcomes of research leading to impact

The results of the ICSD members’ survey and the workshop helped to develop a strategic plan for the organisation and implement the strategic plan with the cooperation of the ICSD colleagues to further build the ICSD.
According to the themes of the conferences, knowledge and awareness of the sustainable development goals, peace and development, poverty, inequality and social development innovations was developed among the participants from universities, governments and nongovernment organisations and beyond these groups.
A submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Submission no. 161: file:///D:/Users/mpawar/Downloads/Sub%20161%20MPawar.pdf

Beneficiaries of the impact

Beneficiaries of the impact included:
The International Consortium for Social Development as the strategic plan helped to clearly focus on its activities.
Social development scholars from government and nongovernment organisations, and universities directly benefitted from the impact.
Beyond this group general community also benefitted through media.

Details of the impact achieved

Although, there was no attempt to measure the impact through research, I believe the impact occurred during and after the conferences and field visits. Participants were able to appreciate how development is and can be achieved in some communities. Some participants were able to appreciate what they gained from the discussion and filed visits. Recognition and ICSD award to organisations and individuals motivated them to further work for communities they have dedicated their lives. As shown in the evidence, some of these activities have been covered by the media.

Impact date	01 Jan 2019 → 31 Dec 2022
Category of impact	Social Impact
Impact level	International