Remarks by Olivier Adam, UNV Executive Coordinator, on the occasion of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board - Agenda Item 5:  United Nations Volunteers, UNV Strategic Framework, 2018-2021. New York, 24 January 2018. Thank you, Mr. Associate Administrator, for your introductory remarks. I am grateful to you and the Administrator for your leadership, and your strong support to volunteers, volunteerism and UNV. Mr. President, Excellencies and Distinguished Members of the Executive Board,

I am a volunteer. Most often than not the response I get sounds like ‘You are just doing something for free? Girl you should get a real job’ or ‘So you hand out fliers every day?’ Mmm.. Not really.

UNV with the special support of UNDP Sri Lanka under the Climate Change Adaptation Project (CCAP) joined hands with farm organizations, students of the Wayamba University, DMC Srilanka, the Volunteer Task Force and nearly 500 community volunteers to plant a select variety of trees on the riparian buffer of 10 selected tanks in the region of Galgamuwa Kurunegala.

Since late 2016, UNV has been strengthening efforts to facilitate the intentional deployment of UN Volunteers with disabilities, and collaborate with UN and other partners on delivering results for persons with disabilities.

The training, which occurred between 31 October and 3 November, included interactive sessions, group work, case studies, role modelling and competency design to better understand the complexity of sustainable development and to identify comparative advantages of volunteerism in implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The main causes of forest and land degradation in the country include deforestation, inappropriate agricultural practices, forest fires, over-grazing and demographic pressures. A survey conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) reported that the annual deforestation rate between 2003 and 2010 had been 1.73 per cent. If this alarming trend were to persist, 17.3 per cent of the forest in the country would disappear by 2021 and all forests in Timor-Leste by 2071.

For COP 23, UN Volunteers has recruited more than 650 volunteers to support a wide range of operational tasks throughout the event. They all attended a full-day training on October 30. Follow the involvement of volunteers during COP 23 here (hover over the image and scroll down):

The UN Climate Change Conference COP 23 is taking place in Bonn, Germany, between 6 and 17 November. UNV is also present in different ways to make sure volunteerism is part of the conversation around the protection of the environment and the fight against climate change.

Eastern Ukraine is an area of protracted armed conflict, which refers to conflicts that are marked by longevity, complexity and a high impact on local populations. Kramatorsk, located in the Donbas region, was one of the first cities over which the Ukrainian government lost control during the conflict’s onset in 2014.

I was working for the Irrigation Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Japan (currently the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) when I was invited to speak at a symposium hosted by the United States Consulate in Fukuoka. At the event, the Principal Officer gave me a book entitled The Good War: the U.N.'s World-Wide Fight Against Poverty, Disease and Ignorance. That chance encounter, in the summer of 1969, changed my life.