UN Volunteers' current contribution to Kenya
Currently, there are 221 UN Volunteers working in Kenya. Of that total, 177 are short-term national UN Volunteers working as community based civic educators, and in the last part of 2002, they were election monitors during the 2002 Kenyan national elections held on 27 December. UNV placed the UN Volunteers in 177 constituencies to monitor the impact of civic education and observe Kenya's general elections. They served under the technical supervision of the Institute of Education for Democracy (IED) and collaborated with the Electoral Commission of Kenya's representatives in the field. The UN Volunteers participated in training polling clerks, disseminating information to local community members, observing the nomination of candidates by the political parties at the local level and counting votes in the polling stations on election day.

UN Volunteers are also supporting the UNDP office, assisting refugees and the administration of camps with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), food aid monitoring with the World Food Programme (WFP), active in urban development with the United Nations Centre for Regional Development and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), and addressing environmental emergencies with the United Nations Enviroment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Disaster Prevention, Management and Coordination Unit (DPMCU).

In addition, 10 UN Volunteers are supporting Kenya's national HIV/AIDS programme as HIV/AIDS specialists, public health officers and HIV/AIDS district coordinators. Seven are supporting the nationally-executed project on good governance for poverty eradication. This two-year project, ending at the end of 2003, is providing Kenya with the necessary tools to better manage its public instutitions and thereby enabling it to address its national policy on ending extreme poverty. The UN Volunteers are supporting this initiative by working as specialists in social development, monitoring and evaluation, participatory development and human rights. Five UN Volunteers are with UNHCR as a logistics field officer, transportation officer, field officer and two network specialists.

Kenya's contribution to UN Volunteers
There are 58 Kenyans serving abroad as International UN Volunteers. They are in Botswana supporting its national HIV/AIDS programme as district advisers; four are in Eritrea with the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) working as a computer specialist, public information officer, air traffic controller/flight navigator and an administrative assistant in finance; eight are supporting peacekeeping operations with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) as air traffic controllers, a nurse, procurement officer, radio technician, investigation officer and mechanic; six are supporting the UN mission in Timor-Leste Timor and 11 are playing a vital role in the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) as telecommunication specialists, a water treatment engineer, aviation officers and network specialists. Other Kenyans are serving in Afghanistan, Botswana, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guyana, Lesotho, Liberia, Mongolia, Namibia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tonga, Uganda, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.