It was like a "battlefield from a scene in a war movie," is how one disaster management officer described villages after the tsunami of 2009, the worst natural disaster for Samoans in living memory. Despite the challenges that natural disasters present in terms of progress towards the MDGs, an incredible surge of post-tsunami volunteerism has surfaced to help communities recover and ensure that they could protect themselves against future calamities.

Painting the MDGs.

In many cities and town across Uzbekistan, UN Volunteers not only help communities but are simultaneously changing the notion of what it means to volunteer in this part of the world. They visit schools and engage children and youth to volunteer.

Socotra, Yemen: As a news editor of a foreign affairs column in the Czech Republic, I was supplying readers with depressing news about tragedies and wrongdoings from all around the world. My subsequent years in advertising gave me an impression that my work was fun but people would have had more pleasant lives without it.  I wanted to make myself useful, so I registered my profile in the UNV database of potential candidates for volunteer assignments.

Mr. De Raad started his UN career as a Junior Professional Officer (JPO) and steadily grew through the ranks in progressively responsible leadership positions. His career included field postings in Bangladesh and Tanzania with United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and UNDP.

Germany is host and strong partner to the United Nations presence in the country. The Federal City of Bonn is home to numerous UN organizations, programmes and offices. Today there are 24 UN institutions based in Bonn, with more than 1,000 members of staff. UNV moved to Bonn in 1996.

In 2017, Sida and UNV signed the first agreement to supporting full funding of UN Youth Volunteer assignments for Swedish Volunteers. During 2024, 70 Swedish nationals served as UN Volunteers. The Government of Sweden fully funded 43 volunteer assignments in total

In 2024, 22 Czech nationals served as UN Volunteers, 13 of whom were funded by the Government of Czechia. The Government also provides a contribution to UNV’s Special Voluntary Fund (SVF), a flexible resource to implement UNV’s Strategic Framework.  

During 2024, 37 Finnish nationals served as UN Volunteers, 32 of whom were funded by the Government of Finland.

France directly supports UNV activities and in 2019 presented its National Situational Analysis on Volunteering, a source for generating evidence and data on volunteerism.