08 June 2001

Bonn, Germany: In June 1973, the new United Nations Volunteers (UNV) presented an activity report to the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A young Ecuadorian student at the session listened attentively to a discussion of the work of some 200 UN Volunteers in various areas of technical cooperation. The presentation sparked his interest, and in January 1974, he set off as the second UN Volunteer to ever serve in Sudan.

This was the start of my career with the UN system and with UNV which, during the 1970s, worked exclusively in the field of technical cooperation. As an integral part of the UN system that supplies qualified UN Volunteers to its agencies, UNV would add activities supporting community participation in development through the 1980s and expand its impact to include humanitarian and electoral operations in the 1990s.

In its first decade, the UNV programme consolidated its position in promoting the transfer of skills. Through the expertise of its volunteers, UNV was able to work efficiently among government institutions in the developing world. The contributions of UNVs to development were concrete and tangible in many fields. Epidemiologists defined control mechanisms to curb the spread of disease while engineers worked with local counterparts to build roads. Agriculturists helped train extension workers, UNV specialists set out to sustain biological diversity and professors introduced new fields of study at universities. Hundreds of UNV doctors in developing countries provided basic health care to local populations during a time when nationals were completing medical training abroad.

In the early 1990s, shortly after I took up the post of Chief of UNV's Operations Division, the programme started recruiting national UNVs and formed the Humanitarian Relief Unit that also fielded volunteers to observe elections. It mobilizes UN Volunteers in short-term emergency operations in cooperation with local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and set up measures to recruit qualified volunteers in anticipation of crises - a roster of "on-call" volunteers. I was appointed Director of Programmes and Operations in 1997, and in this capacity it is my pleasure today to celebrate 30 years of UNV's good work with the confidence that the programme will successfully carry out its UN mandate to bring recognition to voluntary action during this, the International Year of Volunteers 2001.

Happy Anniversary!