The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme has a longstanding partnership with Norway, facilitated through the Norwegian Agency for Exchange Cooperation (Norec), an executive body under the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In November 2022, a delegation from Norec visited UNV headquarters in Bonn to discuss the current partnership and future collaboration.
The two partners exchanged on their collaboration on UNV’s Full Funding programme, under which Norec funds UN Volunteer assignments for Norwegian nationals. In 2021, 27 Norwegian UN Volunteers were deployed, 24 of them funded by Norway. One of these is Andrea Aakre, UN Volunteer Ocean Governance Assistant, who is raising awareness of environmental issues in Namibia with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Norway plays an important role as a supporter of the UN system. We greatly value Norec’s support as a strong advocate and partner for volunteering and for providing talent to the UN system. -- Toily Kurbanov, UNV Executive Coordinator
Norec, a competence centre for international cooperation, has been engaged in advocacy and policies on volunteering for many years, another stream of the ongoing partner collaboration.
Norec commends UNV for its important research work on volunteerism as well as its effective communication and outreach around it, like the regional launches of the State of the World’s Volunteerism Report. --Helge Espe, Senior Adviser, UN and International Networks, Norec
Norec and UNV further explored how to further strengthen volunteering for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, based on the previous collaboration, and with reference to global volunteer networks.