by Donna Keher

11 January 2007

In August 2006, millions of girls and boys in Afghanistan averted the deadly and crippling effects of polio, thanks to thousands of Afghan citizens who participated in a national vaccination campaign. One month later, 35 million people in 122 countries cleaned and restored their neighbourhoods, as part of an annual global environmental initiative. And every day millions of volunteers all over the world-farmers, fishermen, pilots, etc.-read instruments and pass along critical data to help communities predict extreme weather conditions and better cope with the effects.

Spearheaded by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), these examples illustrate eloquently how private individuals volunteer their time, energy and resources towards efforts by UN agencies to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed, "it is not at the United Nations that the MDGs will be achieved. Citizens everywhere, through volunteerism, constitute a tremendous force in helping to make the realization of the Goals a reality".

Volunteerism acts as an effective gateway between the United Nations system and the global citizen. According to one definition of "gateway", it is a network point that acts as an entrance to another network. That captures the essence of volunteerism. It serves as a point that bridges two vast networks: that of the world's leading international intergovernmental institution with that of the global civil society. The interfaces between these networks take many shapes. Sometimes they are in the form of official cooperation between the United Nations and civil society organizations, such as that formalized between the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Rotary International to work together on population and reproductive health issues. Other times, they are spontaneous, such as the efforts of two American women volunteers, who single-handedly launched online what was to become the "34 million friends of UNFPA" campaign, which was successful in raising millions of dollars for the agency's activities. The sheer diversity of interfaces brought about by volunteerism is a significant part of what makes it so important.

Within its mission of harnessing the contribution of volunteers for development, the UN Volunteers (UNV) Programme collaborates with a wide range of UN agencies, funds, programmes and partners to foster synergies between volunteerism and various UN mandates. UNV makes a distinctive contribution in three areas in particular: enhancing access to basic services, inclusion and participation of the most disadvantaged, and community mobilization.

Enhancing opportunities and access to, including delivery of, services.  An enduring challenge to development remains the inability of many State systems to serve the needs of those living under them. Volunteerism can be an effective mechanism to strengthen the Government's ability to distribute adequately and equitably vital public goods and to enable disadvantaged groups and communities to gain wider access to basic services. For example, voluntary action is one of the principal modalities in the implementation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-sponsored Southern Africa Capacity Initiative to address the dramatic loss of skilled human resources resulting from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Some 155 UNV volunteers, many from Africa, are helping national and local public administrations to improve planning mechanisms, policy design and programming quality. They are also supporting the creation of task forces for community members and traditional leaders to better assess and articulate community needs. Another example is the partnership between UNV and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Latin America, which aims to mainstream gender perspectives into local government expenditure plans, while formally recognizing and building on women's voluntary contributions to local development.

Inclusion and participation. UNV works with UN partners to devise development strategies that are genuinely inclusive of all stakeholders, in particular those often excluded from participation in decision-making. Many of the 700 UNV volunteers, who form part of the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), have been helping to ensure the participation of marginalized constituencies in the country's 2005 national constitutional referendum and the 2006 presidential elections. Often serving in remote areas, volunteers work with internally displaced persons and help make the electoral process a means to address some of the enduring challenges they face, such as a lack of proper documentation and visibility, and the need to integrate into new host communities. Many other UNV volunteers have equipped hundreds of local volunteer groups with information and tools to motivate women to vote. So far, these efforts have contributed to a large turnout of women at the polls. Another prime example is the successful transition to local ownership of the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA). A cornerstone of the process was the engagement of UNV volunteers, drawn from all parts of the country, half of them are indigenous people. They took technical skills and leadership on human rights, peacebuilding and local governance processes back to their organizations and communities.

Community mobilization. Collective action is a theme that runs through the Secretary-General's Millennium Report. UNV stimulates efforts by the UN system to galvanize the participation of whole communities through voluntary action in solving development challenges. In Egypt, for example, as part of a UNDP-supported national initiative to eradicate female genital mutilation, local UNV volunteers are raising awareness at the village level about the health-related consequences of the practice. Reaching out to peers, they advocate against the social pressure on women and girls and have mobilized over a thousand young people to further disseminate the message.

In addition, UNV and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification have assisted Cape Verde in establishing a youth volunteer corps for the environment to combat unemployment and land degradation; volunteers are acquiring skills to implement environmentally sensitive income-generating projects. And in many refugee camps, UNV and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) support refugees in organizing volunteer-based task forces to represent their interests and improve conditions within the camps. According to then Assistant High Commissioner David Lambo, "volunteers are invaluable to UNHCR operations".

As these examples show, volunteers are indeed invaluable to the United Nations. The relationship between them is a natural one, based on shared values and common goals and one that should continue to broaden and deepen. The International Volunteer Day, celebrated annually on 5 December, is an occasion to re-examine and reinvigorate this relationship to ensure, as the Secretary-General encourages, that "this wonderful resource, available in abundance to every nation, is recognized and supported, as we work towards a more prosperous and peaceful world".

Donna Keher joined UNV in March 2006 and currently serves as UNV Chief of the Partnerships, Communications and Resources Mobilization Group. She has over 23 years of experience in fundraising, communications and volunteerism in cities across the globe. Her previous appointments include positions with UNICEF.