"Even before the pandemic, violence against women was one of the most widespread violations of human rights. Since lockdown restrictions, domestic violence has multiplied, spreading across the world in a shadow pandemic, " said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, in a press release.

In 2018, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched a job creation programme for 3,000 young people in Mali. Daouda Michel Sawadogo (Burkina Faso) is based in Mopti and served under this programme as an international UN Volunteer Youth Specialist. Idleness makes young people easy prey for armed groups who can then easily recruit them.  The challenge is to help them find an occupation that meets their aspirations. --Daouda Michel Sawadogo, international UN Volunteer Youth Specialist

Through the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Child Development and its network, the initiative aims to mobilise, train and deploy 2500 community youth volunteers across the country, selected from some of the most affected communities in the country. They will support ongoing sensitization efforts by the Zambian Government, the United Nations, Development partners and other key stakeholders to help control the spread of the virus.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) does not discriminate by race, gender, geography, income, age or sex. Regardless of who you are, the type of job you have, or the lifestyle you lead, COVID-19 has shaken societies around the world and upended lives and livelihoods. It has forced governments to respond rapidly and develop response and recovery plans.

Before UNDP, I worked at the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union (EU) in Brussels, Belgium – working closely with the Agriculture and Environment Unit and engaging with the EU’s Task Force for Rural Africa. This provided me with development experience in an agricultural context. As a recent graduate and practitioner in the field of Agricultural Economics, it has been a challenging yet compelling transition to dive into the approaches to prevent violent extremism (PVE). --Tomas Kral, UN Youth Volunteer, UNDP

Nizar (24), Raymonda (28), and Zeinab (27) serve as UN Youth Volunteers in Water/Irrigation Engineering, assisting with the upgrade of existing irrigation infrastructure. “The project consists of the rehabilitation of existing damaged irrigation canals and the transformation of earthen canals to concrete canals,” Raymonda explains. In many regions of the country, very old earthen canals used to transmit water to agricultural lands cause massive water losses.