Survival and relevance were challenging issues early on when volunteer numbers were very small. UNV didn't have 1,000 volunteers until 1980. When compared to other volunteer sending organizations, UNV's contingent was modest in size. There was also the challenge presented by the sheer complexity of developing a universal mechanism for deploying volunteers within the context of the United Nations system. But the idea was brilliant, and thank God it survived the first 10 years.

UNV is a multilateral, multiethnic, multicultural organization that is a vivid expression of international solidarity. It breaks out of the traditional donor-recipient paradigm. Volunteers are making a contribution in each country. And each country makes a contribution through its people. Indeed in the year 2000, we had 157 countries actively participating in our programmes. UNV is one of only a few organizations that sends volunteers from everywhere to almost everywhere. This serves to underscore the reciprocal nature of volunteering. Moreover, UNV is an important organization in that it provides one of the few windows of opportunity for people from developing countries to have the experience of international volunteering and the chance of working as part of the United Nations.

How has the programme's mandate evolved over time?

When the organization began, it was very much rooted in the explosion of international volunteering that began in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although at the beginning, there surely was a spirit of volunteerism, as the organization evolved over time, it began to be looked upon as a cost-effective mechanism -- for recruiting experienced and qualified people. In fact, UNV is still often perceived in this way by many organizations within the United Nations system as well as by many of our external partners.

The first shift in this perception came with the introduction of the international field worker initiative, which got its start in 1976. The idea behind the Domestic Development Services (DDS) was to recruit UN Volunteers from NGOs to work at the grassroots in countries in the same region. And that still goes on today. I sense that it was at this point when UNV started looking at volunteer action as a development activity as opposed to a gap-filling process.

The introduction of national UN Volunteers in the early 1990s emerged as a direct response to the need for strengthened capacity-building within developing countries and the desire for greater sustainability of the work of UNVs. A mixed-team approach with people from the country working hand-in-glove with people from outside became the preferred model. This brought to bear the neutrality that is sometimes needed and skills that may not be available in abundance in a country, while at the same time drawing on the local knowledge and linguistic skills of nationals.

In 1992 when an unprecedented UN peacekeeping operation was launched in Cambodia, the United Nations turned to UNV for the first time to help mobilize a large skilled cadre of people that would be willing and able to live in hardship settings to help prepare the population for democratic elections. These UNVs learned the Khmer language, lived in communities and worked with rural people for an extended period of time to help them become part of this massive undertaking. The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) management itself quite rightly came to understand that this was not something UN staff could do effectively. Moreover, using UN staff would have been horrendously expensive. It also became apparent that this was the right thing to do not only because of the cost-effectiveness but also because of the way the work had to be done ---- building trust in communities, explaining what voting was and what an election was, what democracy was and what rights people should have in order for the election to succeed. This experience opened up a whole new arena for UNV operations. It ultimately led to the indispensable role that UN Volunteers now play in most major United Nations missions.

The multiethnic, multinational composition of the UN Volunteers makes it distinctive. This is more than cosmetics. It affects the perception of the communities where the volunteers work, and of course, it also affects how volunteers perceive themselves. This was very important in the context of Cambodia and it is equally important today, whether it is Kosovo, Sierra Leone or East Timor, where volunteers of 95 different nationalities are now working together under the aegis of the UN to achieve a common goal.

Humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, disaster mitigation and prevention ---- that whole area of work which expanded through the 1990s ---- contributed to the way in which the organization evolved. During natural disasters ---- earthquakes, hurricanes, floods in India, El Salvador, Central America, the Caribbean and Mozambique ---- we witnessed the spontaneous volunteer effort that sprang up when an emergency struck and saw how people willingly took part in community self-help efforts. Thus, our work in the emergency area, especially in disasters, brought us beyond international volunteering into the broader realm of volunteerism per se. In fact, it was a direct result of another earthquake, this one in Kobe, Japan that the idea was born to have an International Year of Volunteers. Japanese authorities were amazed by the spontaneous demonstration of human solidarity during the devastating Kobe earthquake where over 5,000 people were killed. After that earthquake, our Honorary UNV Ambassador, Takehito Nakata, suggested to the Japanese government that there should be an International Year of Volunteers. Up until then, there had been many NGOs and domestic volunteer organizations that had promoted the idea of an international year, but had had no entry point to the United Nations. However, when Mr. Nakata convinced the Japanese government to take the lead, it became possible to pursue the dream of a General Assembly resolution: by supporting the Japanese leadership in securing the resolution, UNV came into regular contact with people who volunteer domestically in their own countries. It opened a door that we have walked through into a whole new way of conceptualizing our work.

What do you believe will be UNV's future in the context of global volunteerism?

We have come to recognize that our mandate must be the promotion of volunteerism. We do this primarily through the deployment of volunteers, whether national or international. Our position within the UN, enables us to help bring a new constituency of people into the United Nations ---- the millions of everyday heroes who volunteer in their own communities around the world: those who fill the blood banks, improve community life, extend the reach of public services, campaign for social, environmental and economic change, as well as engage the private sector as corporate volunteers.

Through the International Year of Volunteers and UNV's role as focal point, we have deepened our own understanding of the value of volunteerism and the important economic contributions that it makes to society as well as its role in creating social cohesion through building trust and reciprocity amongst people. UNV is now positioned to become a people's portal to the United Nations ---- to provide an entry point for ordinary people from around the world to relate to the United Nations and the work that it does because they can connect the UN's efforts to what they are doing in their own communities. IYV 2001 has also helped volunteers to understand that they are part of something that happens in every country, in every culture, and in every religion, regardless of the fact that it might be called by different names in particular cultural settings.

UNV must now build on this universal character of volunteer action. We keep hearing about the need for upstream policy advice in order to get the right policies for good governance. The other side of the democracy and good governance equation is active citizenship ---- citizens prepared to hold elected officials accountable. For that, you need citizens willing to participate in the process with voice and visibility. If you examine any democracy, you will discover that active citizenship usually begins with volunteering at the community level.

In a globalizing world, we need global solidarity. We need to convince people to think and act globally. People should feel a sense that they are part of an international movement that reaches beyond the contribution they are making where they are. UNV can help support this process after IYV 2001 through the extensive network of partners around the world who have registered on the IYV web site and 120 IYV National Committees that formed to promote the goals of IYV. Do we just abandon all this at the end of 2001? Surely not! Many committees could continue beyond 2001 and form the basis of national steering groups to support the notion of national volunteerism and advance it as a community-rooted mechanism to strengthen citizen action. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that IYV is more than a "tour de force"; it should leave a meaningful legacy for volunteerism in the 21st century.