03 October 2005

UN Volunteers take up a variety of activities in the area of humanitarian assistance. They work as food aid monitors, field officers, civilian camp officers, logisticians, procurement specialists, storekeepers, warehouse managers, material management specialists, emergency administrative assistants, transport coordinators and radio technicians. Over the last five years, UN Volunteers have supported humanitarian activities in war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kosovo, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Timor (East and West), Uganda and the former Yugoslavia. UN Volunteers have also supported humanitarian assistance in countries after natural disasters. Following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Honduran UN Volunteers answered the call to help and were among the first people to arrive in the devastated regions of the country organizing shelters for those left homeless.

Recent UNV Humanitarian Operations

In June 2004, 6 National UN Volunteers were assigned to the National Plan for Disaster and Risk Management, a UNDP project in Haiti . They were the first UN affiliated persons to assist the victims of the floods that killed over 1,000 people and left thousands of others homeless in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

14 UN Volunteers currently work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR). The Volunteers provide humanitarian assistance in this war-torn country assisting reintegration efforts,and communications initiatives.

Other UN Volunteers assist the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in Guinea, supporting refugees from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau.

In 2000-2001, the largest involvement of UN Volunteers providing humanitarian aid was in Bosnia. In conjunction with UNHCR, UN Volunteers worked to register and secure the protection of some 67,000 refugees and displaced people from ethnic minorities.

In Timor-Leste, UN Volunteers working with UNHCR carried out tasks relating to the reception, monitoring and initial reintegration assistance for returnees as well as for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Other UN Volunteers active in humanitarian operations are working in Rwanda, Tanzania and Kosovo. Following the crisis in Afghanistan additional UN Volunteers were sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan to work with UNHCR, WFP and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as water/sanitation engineers, site planners, rural rehabilitation specialists, field officers, finance/administrative officers, logistics officers and public information officers.

Partner Agencies
The main agencies with which UNV is cooperating and in which UN Volunteers have been deployed in the context of humanitarian assistance are: UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, ICAO, OCHA, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Funding
Funding sources include: UN agencies, full funding from governments (e.g., Belgium, Finland and Spain), financial contributions from the Governments of Japan and Germany and Argentina's support for the UNV/White Helmet Volunteers, who work in rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.