The contribution of traditional partners to UNV is not symbolic. It is practical and strategic. 

The United Nations General Assembly declared 2026 the International Volunteer Year—setting the stage for a global celebration of volunteers.

One example is the idea of potential output: the highest level of output that can be sustained over time. In standard economics, this is usually discussed at the level of whole economies. But the basic intuition is broader. Societies can increase what they are able to sustain over time, either by increasing the resources available to them, including human labour, or by using existing resources more effectively.

Why Evidence matters for VolunteerismOpening the session, Emiliya Asadova, UNV Team Lead for Evidence, stressed the need for stronger and more inclusive data on volunteerism. Without solid evidence, the work of volunteers risks remaining invisible in national policies and development planning—valued in practice, but absent on paper.

Mayor Guido Déus highlighted Bonn’s long-standing connection to the United Nations and the importance of making this presence visible to the public: “Bonn has been closely linked with the United Nations for many years and has developed into an important centre for sustainability and international cooperation. The UN Campus, more than any other place in Bonn, represents the transformation from the former capital to an international city of sustainability.

Too often, however, volunteerism is still framed in narrower terms — as an exchange of time, skills, or resources from those who have to those who do not. This framing aligns neatly with conventional development metrics and reporting systems, but it misses something fundamental. At its core, volunteerism is relational. It reflects how individuals and communities remain connected to one another, particularly in moments of uncertainty and disruption.

I saw this gap up close, when I attended this year's Humanitarian Network and Partnerships Week in March 2026 in Geneva, a global forum for all humanitarian actors, including volunteer-involving organizations. Across discussions, one message came through clearly: business as usual will not work. This year, the focus was on humanitarian reset and what it means for the people affected by the humanitarian crisis. 

UNV has taken a major step forward in strengthening the digital foundations that support its global work. Building on earlier progress in moving systems to the cloud, the organization has now modernized the core network infrastructure that connects staff, offices, and services—often unseen, but essential to daily operations. At the United Nations Campus in Bonn, this meant replacing over 300 network switches, many of which had been in use since 2006. The upgrade has given network speeds up to ten times faster across all UNV-supported offices and workspaces. 

Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has made a deliberate effort to elevate volunteerism—from declaring 2020 the Year of Volunteers, to championing 2024 as the Year of the Volunteer Movement in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and creating momentum toward 2026 as the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development.

В последние годы в стране и, шире, в Центральной Азии волонтерство получило целенаправленное развитие. Сначала был Год волонтеров в Казахстане в 2020-м, затем – Год волонтерского движения в СНГ в 2024-м. Сейчас, во многом благодаря инициативе Казахстана, нарастает импульс 2026 года как Международного года добровольцев под эгидой Организации Объединенных Наций.