15 December 1999

BONN: The beginning of a new millennium is reason enough to pause and take stock. We feel that UNV can look back with satisfaction. As we approach the year 2000, more than 20,000 UN Volunteers have supported efforts for peace and development worldwide. This was not necessarily predictable when the first 35 UNV pioneers were fielded in 1971. It was only in 1989 that more than 2,000 UNVs served during the course of the year. One decade later, in 1999, their number exceeds 4,000 for the first time.

These figures reveal more than mere growth: they represent an extraordinary expression of solidarity by professionals from all corners of the earth. This vast international expertise that defies the old North-South paradigm of deveopment cooperation is really the uniqueness of the UNV programme. Its success story has been written by the individual UN Volunteers from some 170 countries.

Yet the track record would be incomplete without UNV's many partners: the host governments that have been willing to tap this pool of knowledge; the UN agencies and non-governmental organizations that have included large numbers of UN Volunteers in pursuing their work; the United Nations Development Programme through whose extensive network of country offices UNV operates; the cooperating organizations that have helped to identify and finance qualified candidates; and the donor community that has generously funded our efforts.

To all of them -- to you, our readers - we wish to extend our thanks together with our best wishes for a good start into the new millennium. We are looking forward to writing a new chapter of UNV's success story -- together with you.