by Ad de Raad

13 January 2007

Volunteerism contributes to sustainable capacities because it taps into and builds up the indigenous stock of knowledge, social entrepreneurship and solidarity that exists within a country. A good illustration is Pakistan, where in the wake of the October 2005 earthquake the Government decided to set up a national volunteer movement, with the support of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme, to channel spontaneous large-scale citizen participation in relief and rehabilitation activities into long-term disaster preparedness. Another example is the Bina Mandiri crisis centre in tsunami-devastated Banda Aceh in Indonesia, where UNV has mobilized a network of local volunteers from within the affected population to form the backbone of the centre's ongoing provision of support and counselling.

Every day across Kenya, communities rally together, following the ancient East African tradition called "Harambee", Swahili for "pulling together". They help each other harvest crops and build homes, rural schools and health outposts in some of the country's remotest areas. This same phenomenon is called gotong royong in Indonesia, shramadana in India, mingu in the Andean countries and al taawun wal tawasul in many Arab States. Everywhere we look, women and men are investing themselves and "pulling together" to ring progress to their communities. They rarely make the headlines, but their cumulative impact is enormous. They are volunteers. Volunteerism is an immense and transformative force, which if properly channelled could revolutionize the pace and nature of development. This conviction defines the UNV Programme, established by the UN General Assembly in 1970. At the heart of its mission is a strong commitment to harness the full potential of Volunteerism for Development, or V4D.

The timing is right. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have galvanized unprecedented and quantifiable commitments to curb extreme poverty. But it is increasingly clear that efforts in many countries on the part of national governments, even when supported by the international community, will be greatly challenged to meet the MDG targets by 2015. At the current rate, progress will fall short of what is needed, and we can only hope to meet the MDG deadline and save millions of lives and livelihoods if citizens everywhere, through volunteerism, take ownership of the Goals and use their ingenuity and creativity to combat absolute poverty. V4D typically fosters capacity-building, inclusion, empowerment and ownership. It is a self-perpetuating resource that can replenish itself indefinitely if properly nurtured.

The capacities developed through volunteerism are an important foundation of "free agency", a term proposed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen to mean genuine opportunities for individuals to be "agents of change". As he suggests, exercising free agency-in the political, economic and social spheres-is at the very heart of development. Volunteerism has the potential to effectively leverage all forms of free agency. In the political sphere, it serves as a nursery for good citizenship, educating people in democratic involvement and providing a platform for stakeholders, especially those often at the margins, to participate in decision-making and governance processes. An illustration is the environmental governance dialogue supported by UNV volunteers in rural communities in three countries along the Mekong River. They are helping create opportunities for collaboration among the communities and local government to address conflicting and detrimental uses of the river, and to devise volunteer-driven initiatives to ensure the sustainable use of the river's natural resources. In Nairobi, UNV volunteers are working alongside residents of slums to enhance their ability to organize, in order to better represent their interests, vis-à-vis local authorities, and to mobilize volunteer-led basic services within the settlements.

Volunteerism also stimulates development in the economic sphere. It helps individuals gain valuable skills that enhance employability and contributes to creating income-generating opportunities. It is predicated on the same premises as the poverty-reducing success of the global micro-credit phenomenon: that mutual trust is a key collateral, that poor families can help themselves to overcome poverty and that the poor have skills which remain underutilized. The synergies are also evident in Zambia, where UNV volunteers help women members of microcredit groups coordinate direct action against HIV/AIDS in their communities on a voluntary basis.

In fostering opportunities for individuals to be agents of change, particularly those traditionally most excluded from the processes and decisions that affect their lives, volunteerism fosters empowerment and broad-based ownership. Each act of volunteering, while specific, has a systemic impact. Through it, the most disadvantaged build a web of social networks that contributes to the growth of social capital, essential for stable and cohesive communities, and in and of itself a permanent resource for development. While far-reaching benefits of volunteerism are well known and widely acknowledged, it remains a surprisingly undervalued and underused resource. UNV endeavours to provide the missing link: the deliberate and systematic connection between volunteerism and mainstream development.

The UNV strategy is three-pronged:

Mobilizing volunteers for development and peace. Close to 8,500 qualified, experienced and committed women and men of 170 nationalities serve each year as UNV volunteers in over 140 countries; some 76 per cent come from the South, serving abroad or in their own country. UNV is also increasingly assisting countries in developing national capacities to mobilize volunteers. A successful example is Bolivia, where UNV, as part of the national strategy to fight poverty, has helped develop a programme to mobilize over a thousand university students-half of them women-to assist 175 municipalities in reducing poverty. In the Balkans, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNV have launched a scheme for cross-border youth volunteer exchanges to foster confidence-building and social cohesion. UNV also manages the Online Volunteering Service to connect volunteers with development organizations over the Internet. Since its creation in 2000, over 9,000 volunteers from 170 countries-40 per cent come from developing countries and 60 per cent are women-have shared their technical expertise and advice with scores of host organizations. In the United Republic of Tanzania, for example, a non-governmental organization devoted to HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, has enjoyed the support of over 120 online volunteers, who have provided coaching, international institutional contacts and information materials previously not available in the country.

Advocating for volunteerism and development globally. Building on its role as focal point for the International Year of Volunteers (IYV 2001) and its follow-up, UNV has become a global advocate for the V4D concept. It stimulates the adoption of national policy and legislation supportive of volunteerism, as well as research to assess the impact of volunteering. UNV also manages the World Volunteer Web portal, a clearinghouse for information on volunteering worldwide.

Integrating volunteerism into development programming. UNV encourages partners to factor volunteerism into development programming and plan strategically for volunteer involvement in activities that contribute to achieving the MDGs. The UNV Special Voluntary Fund supports innovative pilot activities that demonstrate the added value of volunteerism.

The Volunteerism for Development concept can serve to both stimulate and anchor the ongoing debate on the merits and shortcomings associated with the forces of globalization. As UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis explores in his book, "A Better Globalization", the disjuncture between the pace of globalization and the sense of legitimacy and participation at the local level remains one of our greatest challenges. The potential of volunteerism to include and empower a wider and more diverse range of stakeholders can be an important part of the answer, so much so that should we proactively embrace the possibilities it offers, it may well be possible in 2015 to speak of the revolutionary progress in the fight against poverty.

Ad de Raad is Executive Coordinator of the UNV Programme since 2004. A civil engineer by training, his career at the United Nations spans over 25 years, including with UNDP, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the United Nations Capital Development Fund. Prior to joining UNV, he was Director of Budget at UNDP in New York.