Social work and strengthening of NGOs in development cooperation to treat drug addiction
Social work is one of the youngest scientific disciplines, it has developed itself as a discipline to address individuals, families and communities in social crisis (poverty, low level of education, un- employment, diseases, social isolation). In the last decade also problems with alcohol and drug dependencies increasingly became the subject of social work support(systems). Due to coming global- isation, where living space has become wider than the community itself, social work was forced to operate within wider horizons and to go beyond communities boundaries. Social work nowadays has been becoming a more global scientific discipline seeking answers to global questions. Social work is therefore linked to all seventeen global goals of sustainable development (SDGs). As the prevention and treatment of drug addiction in Germany and Central Asia has reached a common urgency, a training and research project in the field of social work in addiction support was developed in Germa- ny, Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan) and China. The development of social work in these countries increasingly led to the development of common principles in the technology and ethics of social work, comparing standards and working out the socio-cultural peculiarities in the definition and practice of social work. These developments are examined and presented and their common solution ideas discussed in the con- text of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.