Katmandu, Nepal: My name is Manash Gadtaula and I am a national UN Volunteer in Nepal. I serve as a civil engineer in a team of eight for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) building demolitions project, as a support for the Village Development Committee. Demolition of houses can sound counter-intuitive but it is actually necessary in order to prevent further loss of lives during the aftershocks.

Member States of the Open Working Group on the Post-2015 agenda agreed, "There should be [a sustainable development goal] on peaceful and inclusive societies, with the aim of building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels,"  recalled Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme at the launch of the State of the World's Volunteerism Report 2015. "Volunteers can help engage people from all walks of life in making progress towards that goal a reality," she concluded.

Katmandu, Nepal: My name is Hotrika Joshi and I am a national UN Volunteer Civil Engineer in Nepal. I am part of a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) demolition project, which has handled the damage assessment of 250 households, benefitting approximately 1,500 people. In the Irkhu Village Development Committee area, a thousand more buildings need to be assessed and potentially torn down within the very first weeks, before the monsoon arrives.

Gaza, State of Palestine: Volunteerism is the path I have chosen to shape the development of my community and my own self-confidence. In my home of Gaza city, within the State of Palestine, volunteerism, as with many other things, takes its own particular shape. We volunteer to help people and to help ourselves in the context of high levels of poverty and unemployment.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti: My name is Francesca Pinna, I am a United Nations Volunteer in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Office in Haiti. I never thought that I would get engaged in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). It happened by chance after the earthquake that hit the Italian city of Aquila in 2009. I understood what an unexpected natural disaster could really provoke and how much destruction could have been avoided through an adequate knowledge of disaster risks and appropriate preparedness.

New Delhi, India: In his celebrated work The Prophet author, poet and artist, Khalil Gibran, wrote, “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

Prishtina, Kosovo:  From my very first day working as a UN Youth Volunteer as part of UNDP’s Inclusive Growth Team in Kosovo, I started to realize that all the statistics showing high levels of unemployment, particularly among youth, are hiding the true and disturbing extent of this issue. With more than 35 percent of young Kosovars neither having a job nor going to school, they grow impatient, pessimistic about their chances to have a decent life, and frustrated with not being heard.

During the first UNV Partnerships Forum that took place in Bonn, on September 30th and October 1st 2014, eight UN Volunteers were given the floor to share their experience as UN Volunteer. In this video, Sathaboramana Kheang, National UN Volunteer from Cambodia tells about her commitment volunteering for the LGBT community rights.

Volunteering is an effective avenue for creating constructive partnerships between nations, communities and individuals and between governments, civil society and the private sector. The role volunteerism plays in making development genuinely people centered should be properly recognized.

Quito, Ecuador: As a UN Youth Volunteer in Gender Analysis, assigned to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Office of the Resident Coordinator in Quito, Ecuador, I support and advise the Resident Coordinator and the United Nations Country Team on gender-related advocacy, communications and resource mobilization.