San Salvador, El Salvador: The signing of the 1992 peace accords in El Salvador brought an end to more than 12 years of civil war that resulted in a situation of poverty and social injustice in the Central American country. Read

Bonn, Germany: Daddy helps mummy take care of my little sister and My father is a good cook are the titles of posters of some of the 40,000 entries submitted by Vietnamese school children to represent how they perceive gender equality. “I am too familiar with the image of my father reading the newspaper while my mother is cleaning or cooking to question why there is such an inequality,” said a 14-year-old winner in the poster competition. Read

Bonn, Germany: The work of 21 UN Volunteer gender specialists is featured in a new publication to be issued Tuesday in New York during a special session of the United Nations General Assembly marking the fifth anniversary of the World Conference on Women in Beijing. Read

Bonn, Germany: In Rwanda, a tiny, strife-torn East African country, national UNV field workers are helping widows and girl orphans raise an income in the rural areas around Umutara, Kibungo, Kigali Rural, Butare and Gitarama. Auréa Gasengayire, Drocelle Mukazayire and Hélène Muragijemariya, all Rwandans, are three of the UN Volunteer field workers taking part in a UNV programme targeting the needs of some 17,000 people. Among these are 7,200 widows and 500 orphans who survived the country's 1994 genocide. Read

Orissa, India: The state of Orissa in eastern India was devastated by a cyclone on 29 October 1999. Efforts have been in full swing to help the affected people of Orissa first through immediate relief measures. Several agencies under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have come together here to work. The UN's mission in Orissa, however, could not have been such a success were it not for the efforts of the 13 national United Nations Volunteers (NUNVs). Read

Bonn, Germany: Gabriela Elroy is a Swedish UN Volunteer fully-funded by her government who is working as a gender specialist with the Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy (MEND), a Palestinian NGO in Jerusalem. Read

Bonn, Germany: Women in Mali wear many hats. They are the household managers, the farm workers in the fields, the potters and the salespersons in the markets or along village streets. Yet despite their many skills, they find it hard to turn a profit because most work alone at home and have not had the chance to learn about marketing. This is where the UN Volunteers, the majority of them national field workers, come in. Read

Bonn, Germany: The typical woman in Mali is responsible for daily domestic needs. She wears many hats, namely as household manager, farm worker in the fields, salesperson at the market or along village streets and pottery artist. She possesses the skills necessary and useful in many areas of development. N'na Marie Lokou, a UNV field worker, has identified these vital human resources. She is working on a project to generate income among women in the northern district of Diré, near Timbuktu. Read

Bonn, Germany: As a medical doctor and nutritionist in Mali, I am assigned to one of the poorest countries in the world. I work in a deprived rural community of 2,800 inhabitants in the Mopti region, some 800 km from the capital. Read

Bonn, Germany: Uganda-born UNV gender specialist Christine Musisi received one of the highest honours bestowed upon a foreigner by the Mongolian Government: the Friendship (Nairamdal) Medal. Read