14 June 2001

New York, U.S.A.: United Nations Volunteers (UNV) will commemorate its 30th anniversary in a special event to be held at 3 p.m., 21 June in Conference Room 2 at UN Headquarters. The media is invited.

Speakers include Louise Frechette, Deputy UN Secretary-General, Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Marcos Kisil, President of Brazil's Institute for Democracy and Social Investment.

UN Volunteers and UN Resident Coordinators will present and discuss efforts to assist people living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana, connect communities with information and communication technology in Bhutan, safeguard human rights in Guatemala and bridge from peacekeeping to reconstruction in East Timor.

The event will also highlight initiatives undertaken in the course of the International Year of Volunteers 2001, for which UNV has been designated the focal point by the UN General Assembly.

UNV through the years

On 17 December 1970, the UN General Assembly decided to "establish within the existing framework of the United Nations system, with effect from 1 January 1971, an international group of volunteers, the members of which shall be designated collectively and individually as United Nations Volunteers"(A/RES/2659). It called on UNDP to administer the programme.

The first UN Volunteers served in Yemen. By the end of 1971, 41 UN Volunteers had taken up assignments in five countries. In its first decade, UNV focused in areas of technical cooperation -- bringing skills in health, education, agriculture, fisheries, and engineering. In 1991, the first national UN Volunteers were recruited to work in Sudan. Since then, international and national UN Volunteers work side-by-side to carry out effective community-based initiatives in many countries, and the participatory approach has become a distinct feature of the work by UN Volunteers.

The 1990s marked a period of great expansion for UNV and at the end of the decade, UN Volunteers carried out more than 5,100 assignments. The last decade also ushered in a new phase for UNV: electoral assistance and support to humanitarian relief and United Nations peace efforts. Since 1992, over 4,000 UN Volunteers have served in 19 different peacekeeping operations.

Today, UNV has broadened its support to global volunteerism in all of its forms, primarily through its role as focal point for the UN International Year of Volunteers (IYV 2001: www.iyv2001.org).

UNV also promotes new forms of volunteerism such as the United Nations Information Technology Service volunteer corps (UNITeS -- www.unites.org) and home-based, online volunteering service managed by UNV and carried out in partnership with UNDP and Netaid.org (app.netaid.org/OV).