Landscape Restoration Project  Júlia Baena de Mesquita is an Environmental and Social Analyst with the World Bank in Burundi. She ensures that the World Bank’s social safeguards are applied to all the projects. By doing so, she guarantees that development is not done at any cost. This ranges from issues that stem from labour conditions to gender-based violence, and communities’ health and safety. 

Long thought of as a place of natural beauty and biodiversity, Madagascar is experiencing environmental destruction like never before.

Throughout my studies, I became interested in the interplay between social policy and economic growth. Hence, I decided to focus on the provision of quality education and how education systems impact social and economic development, especially in the context of Europe and Central Asia.  Serving as a UN Volunteer with the World Bank in line with my values: it enables me to have a real impact on improving people's access to social services, infrastructure and good jobs, as well as empowering young people. 

Olga Tsaplina has joined UN-Habitat in Kenya as a Junior Officer for sustainable urbanization in August 2020. She has a background in political science and international relations and studied in Russia and Germany. UN-Habitat Human Rights and Social Inclusion Unit is responsible for the inclusion of the vulnerable urban population groups into programming and various other activities of the agency. Olga has been supporting the unit on several workstreams like developing the project documents, concept notes, reports and sometimes weekly event publications.

Ayaka’s assignment had a strong focus on COVID-19 response and capacity building, along with accelerating private sector engagement in the Sustainable Development Goals. She also enhanced Uzbekistan’s participation in the UN Food Systems Summit last year. 

The Libya Education Response Monitoring Dashboard documents that some 326,000 people in Libya are in need of education support. UNICEF works to ensure access to safe, inclusive and quality education, particularly for children affected by the protracted crisis. In strengthening support to humanitarian coordination among education actors in the country, UNICEF has a special focus on engaging with community-based organizations and the Ministry of Education.

This year, in Ethiopia, 10 UN Volunteers decided to overcome emerging obstacles. Leveraging the power of e-communication platforms, they embarked on an online three-month journey to connect with young, passionate Ethiopian students. The goal of this bridge-building coaching initiative was to enhance digital, communication and presentation skills and to support young mentees in facing challenges in identifying future career paths. This collaboration was of mutual benefit to the personal development of both mentors and mentees.

Under a partnership with the Government of the Russian Federation established in 2018, UNV is offering UN Volunteer assignments in different areas of expertise for Russian nationals.

By introducing a law against gender-based violence in 2011 and adopting a positive discrimination approach, progress made in Cabo Verde has been encouraging. Unfortunately, entrenched patriarchal gender stereotypes persist and many of these have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. More women were isolated at home and many social services closed, which resulted in the increased vulnerability of women and girls to domestic abuse and other forms of violence. Work continues to recover these gains and promote greater equality for women in Cabo Verde.

A world full of fairness, agility and justice Jean-Rufin Doguela Gbogola is a national UN Volunteer Monitoring and Reporting Assistant with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in the Central African Republic.  My assignment is focused on monitoring and reporting a joint youth project, which aims to promote the socioeconomic resilience of young people in the country, by creating emergency jobs and entrepreneurship training.