20 June 2007

Collaboration between UNV and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) dates back to the early 1990s and has been expanding progressively over the past years as humanitarian crises continue to unfold.  In 2000, 362 UNV volunteers were deployed in 46 UNHCR operations.  By 2006, this figure had doubled, with almost 796 UNV volunteers deployed in 74 countries.  So far in 2007, over 600 UNV volunteers have been deployed in 69 countries, half of these serving in their own countries.  

UNV volunteers are engaged in various aspects of UNHCR field activities, ranging from registration and refugee status determination, protection monitoring and repatriation, support to health and nutrition services in refugee camps, and infrastructure support for internally displaced persons in countries like the Sudan, Tanzania, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Working together with UNHCR colleagues and other partners, UNV Protection Officers in South Sudan, Reception Officers in Darfur, or Logistics Officers in West Africa jointly undertake distinct activities which can be directly attributed to the results that UNHCR aims to achieve – providing stronger and more effective protection and assistance to the disadvantaged people it is mandated to serve.

Specifically, in its work with UNHCR, UNV’s contributions are embedded in three distinct areas which contribute to the ground operations of UNHCR, namely:

1. Enabling disadvantaged groups and communities to gain wider access to opportunities and services and to enhance the delivery of these services;
2. Inclusion and participation and promoting the involvement of all stakeholders, in particular the disadvantaged, in processes that affect their well being;
3. Community mobilization through voluntary action.

In the hundreds of camps and centres managed by UNHCR and partners around the world for the internally displaced and refugee populations, volunteerism, volunteer action and volunteers, including UNV volunteers, are best complementing the work of UNHCR and making real contributions in these three distinctive areas.

The sheer resilience, determination and will of refugees and displaced persons themselves is admirable – in times of emergency and humanitarian crisis the affected themselves are always the first to “volunteer” and “mobilize” themselves.

For example, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, with strong recognition and support from the Government, volunteer action on the ground played a very effective role – with thousands of volunteers from all over the country as well as from different parts of the world collectively participating in rescuing the victims and supplying them with urgently needed relief and services.

In the context of UNV collaboration with UNHCR, UNV supplied UNV volunteers to assist in the implementation of UNHCR’s work. It also went one step further and supported the Government of Pakistan in establishing and launching the “National Volunteer Movement” to complement and support the activities of the government and the international aid community, including those of UNHCR.  By tapping its own nationals, and especially through tapping into the wealth of knowledge and skills of the affected communities themselves, the crisis and its enduring recovery efforts could be owned and addressed by the people of Pakistan with a greater sense of local direction, management and ownership.