When war is finally over, a humanitarian space has been provided, and the road to longer-term recovery has taken hold, a crucial next step towards rebuilding a nation often takes form in the holding of free and fair popular elections.

Such electoral processes, especially in fragile post-conflict environments, often require significant substantive and logistical support, a field in which UN Volunteers have regularly proved essential.

Since 1992, more than 8,000 UN Volunteers have been engaged in 52 electoral processes. In most situations, UN Volunteers work in collaboration with the UN Electoral Assistance Division, UN peacekeeping and political missions, and UNDP.

Electoral UN Volunteers are often based at the district level and work in teams with other international UN Volunteers, international UN staff, and local counterparts (often from the national elections commission).

They are called upon to support a wide range of electoral activities ranging from the registration of voters and conducting civic education campaigns, to the stock-taking of electoral material and planning for its distribution, to the preparation of polling station kits.

UN Volunteers take part in sensitization programmes for the local population; help establish a voting infrastructure; encourage full participation in elections; and work closely with national electoral commissions which includes giving advice on group building, communications, public relations and sensitization programmes – often in a capacity-building, advisory role. 

Support to electoral processes in post-conflict situations involves travelling to remote areas and living and working in harsh conditions. The political atmosphere is often tense and the local populations are physically and psychologically scarred.  The role of UN Volunteers demands much more than the minimum requirements and qualifications of their position descriptions.

Recently, UN Volunteers have been involved in electoral processes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal and Timor-Leste. As of May 2009 they were supporting electoral processes in Côte d’Ivoire, Afghanistan and Sudan.

• Learn more about UNV and humanitarian assistance
• Learn more about UNV and UN peacekeeping operations

If you wish to register your profile in our database of potential candidates, please go to register to be a UN Volunteer.