A total of 185 women UN Volunteers have served with UNAMID since 2008 and UNISFA since 2012 in a multitude of fields, including medicine, health, engineering, finance, technology and supply chains. Comprising no more than 25 per cent of the total UN Volunteer workforce supporting these two missions, women have been handling challenging tasks and benefiting the communities they serve. Irene Haroub (Zimbabwe), a UN Volunteer HIV/AIDS Trainer/Counselor with UNAMID, hopes the impact of her work will benefit mothers and communities in Darfur for many years to come.

The UNDP project "Conservation and sustainable management of key globally-significant ecosystems for various benefits" started in Kazakhstan in 2019. It introduces a new, conservation-centered and financially self-sufficient approach to the management of forests, climate and land integrity, particularly in the pilot biodiversity areas of Zhambyl and Turkestan.

If there is a skill that UN Volunteers currently assigned in Guinea-Bissau have strengthened in the fight against COVID-19, it is adaptability to local and national situations. João Hernani Melo and Laura Brandão, Brazilian UN Volunteers assigned to UNDP and UNFPA respectively, have had to develop effective response strategies to accompany the government and support communities in these challenging times.

UN Community Volunteers Milena Reljic, David Georgiev and Nikola Josipovic are busy with initiatives related to the COVID-19 outbreak, as many other development workers are. They help Roma communities, to which they also belong, to tackle COVID-19 global challenges, and ensure that the interests of the Roma are given due attention and delivered upon.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, 400 medical workers, teachers, specialists in community mobilization, youth and pensioners, all health volunteers, immediately came together to establish a new approach of help. They organized consultations for their fellow villagers, using materials from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO). Though they cannot conduct live trainings because of the lockdown, they found a way to be available 24/7 via Telegram channel and calls.

In the Central African Republic, radio broadcasts are a useful means to share public information, especially to the most remote populations. UN Volunteers assigned with the MINUSCA’s radio are on the frontline to raise awareness aboutt the COVID-19 pandemic. These dedicated UN Volunteers share current up-dates on COVID-19 via radio programmes, while advocating for prevention and protection measures.

The COVID-19 pandemic will have devastating effects on UN programme countries, reversing many positive gains in sustainable development. The negative social and economic impact particularly affects people most often left behind; such as women, children and those with disabilities.  In support of countries and UN partners in the COVID-19 response, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is investing its own resources to immediately deploy 70 UN Volunteers to countries severely affected by the crisis.

Over the past two years, more and more UN Volunteers have been serving with WHO in support of its operations in the Arab States (from 8 in 2018 to 50 in 2020). Today, these UN Volunteers are part of the organization’s efforts to support an effective COVID-19 response by governments of the region, serving in functions varying from technical support and public information, to general administration, financial and personnel management.

In 2015 UNDP’s country office in Ukraine established a health procurement project and became the first in Europe and Central Asia to do so. Alongside delivering vital medicines, the project’s key priorities were to provide support to the Government in creating a central procurement agency and establishing a modern health supply system in the country. The Health and Transparency programme, which took the lead in implementing the initiative from the UNDP, was supported by both National and International UN Volunteers.

One billion active volunteers worldwide are already making important contributions across all SDGs. In July 2020, governments and their partners will come together at the Global Technical Meeting on Reimagining Volunteerism for the 2030 Agenda to discuss what we know about the transformative potential of volunteering, and to reflect on how to maximize the impact of volunteering under the 2030 Agenda.