05 December 2004

Islamabad, Pakistan: Honourable Prime Minister, Chairman of the National Commission for Human Development, Executive Director of UNICEF, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System in Pakistan, Ministers, Ambassadors, distinguished guests and fellow volunteers:

Being together here today in Islamabad, against the backdrop of the beautiful Margalla Hills, I am reminded that human settlements have been found on this site dating back at least 3000 years. That would mean that traditions of volunteerism date back as long.

I am also reminded that The Koran, for instance, conveys important notions of charitable giving through zakat and other concepts that extend far beyond charitable giving. They encompass ideals that are dear to contemporary lives of Muslims and indeed of people of all other great religions – the ideals of social justice, sharing, altruism and compassion.

This conference has been organized partly to reflect on the many and varied expressions of voluntary action and behaviour that form the very basis of all civilized societies and without which civilized societies would not even function well.

Volunteerism is not just a theoretical concept. It is a live and powerful force for economic and social development that benefits society at large, communities and individual volunteers. It is an important component of any strategy to reduce poverty, to ensure that development is sustainable and health and education is improved; an important component to bring about social integration and, in particular, to overcome social exclusion and discrimination. These words are not to be taken lightly. They are drawn directly from recent resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly.

The International Year of Volunteers in 2001 put volunteerism on the world map. Built around the four themes of recognition, facilitation, networking, and promotion, the Year generated a great deal of interest in ways that governments and the UN system could strengthen the environment within which voluntary action by ordinary citizens takes place. We are now seeing the fruits of IYV. There is notable increase, for example, of (i) national and local volunteer schemes, (ii) of initiatives to measure economic contributions of volunteer action, (iii) of supportive national legislation, and (iv) an exponential growth of electronic networking among volunteer involving organizations and individual volunteers. (v) Academic research on different volunteer topics is on the rise and we are seeing (vi) the private sector opting more and more for employee volunteer schemes as part of corporate social responsibility.

In all these positive developments however, there has been a missing link – viz. the deliberate and systematic connection between volunteerism and mainstream development. We see this first in the North. Volunteerism is widely recognized and celebrated there on the domestic front, but this recognition rarely extends to inclusion of support for voluntary action in ODA policies and programmes. In the South, volunteerism is often dismissed by the international development community as contributions in kind which local people provide to match externally supported development initiatives. The fact that such contributions are inspired by similar motivations and aspirations that drive volunteerism in the North, and that they need similar recognition and support, is rarely factored into development thinking and planning.

Does it matter? I believe the answer to this is a categorical Yes. It matters that AIDS sufferers can rely on very best support from volunteers in their communities. It matters that a culture of voluntary parental participation is in place to complement government efforts to improve the quality and coverage of local schools. It matters that youth groups get involved in sustainable environmental awareness campaigns.

It matters that women’s’ local volunteer-based associations strive to gain the legal status that facilitates their efforts to advocate for basic human rights. It matters that community members invest volunteer time and skills in helping to upgrade slum dwellings of neighbours and friends. Above all, it matters that we put policies and programmes in place to ensure that we fully tap the potential and extraordinary contribution of volunteerism to tackle the major challenges of our times.

Through volunteerism, people become active development actors, rather than passive aid recipients alone. That matters a lot!

At the Millennium Declaration, adopted by the Millennium Summit in 2000, the leaders of the world committed their nations to a global partnership to reduce poverty, improve health and promote peace, human rights and environmental sustainability. The Millennium Declaration generated the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs. These are a set of quantified targets for ending by 2015 extreme poverty in its many dimensions, including low income, hunger, lack of education, gender inequality, disease, environmental degradation, insecurity of shelter. The MDGs are indeed much more than benchmarks or scorecards. They constitute a compact between rich and poor countries to reduce poverty. They build on a number of global conferences that have taken place in past years, most recently the Monterrey Summit of Financing for Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. They provide a common platform for development efforts of the entire UN system and as such have to be taken very seriously. And they are a break with business as usual.

There is now general consensus that, under certain conditions, the MDGs are attainable. Indeed, in some sectors, and in some parts of the world, the signs are quite positive. But a significant number of countries are falling behind and some are widely off track especially Africa South of the Sahara, Central Asia, parts of this region South Asia and the Andean countries. There is no question that there is an enormous financial resource gap or deficit in poor countries. Unless rich countries do much more to live up to their commitments in aid, trade and debt relief, the MDGs will be but a distant dream. This issue is, rightly, a major concern - barely a day goes by without a meeting being held somewhere in the world on the issue. We also in this conference will not evade addressing the matter.

But that is focusing on development deficits. Today I would rather focus on a development asset that every country, no matter how poor, can count on, and which has been largely neglected so far in discussions on achieving the MDGs. And that is the powerful force represented by volunteering, by people and for people.

This is the first ever meeting at the global level specifically focused on the subject. It will take the voluntary effort of countless millions of ordinary citizens, their ingenuity, their creativity, their solidarity, to accompany the actions of governments, the UN system, civil society organizations and the private sector to make the Goals a reality.

Many of these citizens will be the income poor themselves for whom reciprocal support from other members of the local community can be absolutely fundamental to survival. Indeed, one could say that volunteerism is the ultimate safety net of the poor.

Let me be very clear here on a couple of points.

First, we are not suffering from the rose tinted spectacle syndrome. Tragically, every day hundreds of millions of people struggle to overcome the daily grind of hunger, disease, and ignorance. But there is also a wealth of good will and solidarity, knowledge and social networks, to be tapped in local communities all over the globe, with support from outside. This is all about the capacity to cooperate – to get things done. So often it can be the magic ingredient that makes the difference.

Fundamental questions we will be addressing over the course of the next two days are (i) The degree to which “volunteer capital” is to be found in communities – (ii) the conditions under which such capital thrives – and (iii) steps that can be taken to build up this vital resource, including with the involvement of volunteers external to affected communities.

The second point that I would like to emphasize at the very outset is that focusing on volunteerism as a path to help meeting MDGs in no way absolves governments and others from meeting their own responsibilities. In this connection we should remind ourselves that although Volunteerism can be very cost effective and efficient it is not cost free.

For volunteer potential to be fully realized, the need for public and private investment in a range of volunteer infrastructure has been very well articulated in the UN General Assembly resolutions I mentioned at the outset. For governments this includes, for example, (i) implementing public awareness campaigns; (ii) introducing training and recognition measures; (iii) putting in place enabling fiscal and legislative frameworks; (iv) improving the knowledge base of the parameters, profile, and trends of volunteering in the local country context; (v) ensuring access of the population to information on volunteer opportunities; (vi) addressing the possible impact of general social and economic policy measures on the opportunities and willingness of citizens to volunteer; and (vii) integrating volunteerism into national development planning.

Civil society organizations and the private sector have their own important contributions to make.

This conference takes place at a critical juncture. Next September the world will reconvene at the United Nations to review the progress made towards achieving the goals set out in 2000. The UN Secretary General has underlined that this should be more than a stock-taking exercise. He has urged that the occasion be used to inject new energy into the pursuit of the Goals. There will be ten years left to make significant progress - or to fall further backwards. We cannot even begin to consider the implications for peace and security of the latter.

So there is no way but forward. Our deliberations over the course of the next two days will feed into the MDG debate in the coming months. We must therefore ensure that this conference will help raise global awareness of the power and critical importance of volunteer contributions to development and that it will add significantly to knowledge on ways and means to fully harness the potential of volunteerism.

Today is 5 December, International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development. As one of the outcomes of the successful International Year of Volunteers, this day is now celebrated all over the world, in the North and very much so in the South, to rally around the objectives of that Year: recognition, facilitation, networking, and promotion of volunteerism.

In his message, Secretary General Kofi Anan put it like this: “Volunteering on the ground in communities, or online at home, is a vital channel for ordinary people to perform extraordinary tasks and, in doing so, to underline the wealth of human solidarity that needs to be harnessed if we are to reach our common objectives”.

I cannot imagine a more appropriate event to mark the Day than the opening of this conference. If we are successful, this meeting will go a long way to help ensure that volunteerism is placed firmly on the map and that it plays a significant role in helping to move forward the development agenda – in the right direction.

Thank you