The United Nations Volunteers’ flagship publication, the State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, released its latest edition in December, unveiling the Global Index of Volunteer Engagement (GIVE)—a new compass for understanding how people give their time and spirit to the world. Its arrival has sparked conversations far beyond traditional volunteerism circles, prompting both cautious reflection and heartfelt celebration. 

“My place is where policies meet people.” For Besmira Doma, that line was never abstract. It shaped her studies, her choices, and her decision to work at the point where decisions on paper turn into change in real lives. With graduate degrees in Public Service Administration and Governance and Public Policy, she did not stop at theory. Today, as a UN Volunteer with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Albania, Besmira serves as a Youth Empowerment Officer—bringing policy down to street level, and young people into the conversation. This is her story.

Jahdiel Kossou, from Benin, serves as an international UN Volunteer with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Antananarivo—he is an Early Childhood Development Specialist. He says his work starts long before classrooms, policies, or progress reports. It starts in the first breath of life. In the fragile, decisive years when a child’s brain is forming faster than it ever will again, when nutrition, protection, stimulation, health care, and responsive caregiving quietly determine who that child will become. Jahdiel joined UNICEF because he believes that investing in children from conception to age eight is not charity—it is strategy. Not sentiment—it is nation‑building. This is where inequality begins—and where it can be undone. Here’s more from him.

At first, the room is quiet—almost guarded. On a human rights training day in Madagascar’s Sofia region, people arrive with folded arms and measured words. Local leaders, youth activists, women’s groups, community representatives. They listen. They wait. Human rights, after all, can sound like something designed elsewhere, for someone else. And days like International Women’s Day can sometimes feel symbolic—marked on calendars, discussed in speeches, distant from daily realities.
Then the silence breaks. Someone talks about land taken without consent. A woman speaks of being shut out of a decision that shapes her family’s future—her voice steady, resolute. A young person admits they don’t know where justice begins, or whether it’s meant for them at all.
The atmosphere shifts instantly. Human rights stop being theory and start being personal. Legal language collides with lived reality. Hands go up. Voices sharpen. Stories connect. People begin to see themselves inside the concepts, not outside them. “That’s the moment everything changes,” reflects Pierre Yvan Miharisoa, a national UN Volunteer from Madagascar. “That’s when my real work begins.”

At the end of 2025, the fifth edition of the State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR) landed—and it did not arrive quietly. This was not a routine publication to skim and shelve. For me, as a member of the High Level Advisory Group, it marked the culmination of intense intellectual work, difficult questions, and an unambiguous challenge to how we understand power, participation, and solidarity in today’s world. This Report demanded attention, which may I say, it so rightfully deserves.

By 2050, the global workforce will belong to today’s under 25s, placing the future of economies—and the survival of food systems—squarely in their hands. As the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) marked its 80th anniversary in October 2025, one reality was impossible to ignore: young people are no longer the future of agrifood systems—they are already on the front lines. From innovation and digital transformation to climate adaptation and sustainability, youth are driving change in a sector that cannot afford to stand still. FAO Liaison Office in Moscow spoke with Aleksei Gorkov, a young UN Volunteer funded by the Russian Federation. Based as an Innovation Specialist at FAO’s Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa in Cairo, Aleksei represents a generation that is not waiting for permission to lead—but is already doing so. The following are excerpts of the interview.