When Alissa Ditten arrived in Accra from Switzerland, she expected to support operations. What she didn’t anticipate was how quickly her role would expand beyond it. Based within the Country Management Unit, Alissa's UN Volunteer assignment is funded by Switzerland and based in Ghana with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Her days move between research, coordination, and communication—often within the same stretch of time.

That dual positioning has given her a front-row view of how projects are developed. In her role of UN Volunteer Operations Analyst, she balances operations and communications. “This mix is quite exciting,” she says. “It really helps me go in-depth about IFC’s work, our projects and the impact we’re making.” 

Let's hear more from Alissa.

As we approach 2030, the global community is at a critical juncture in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While progress on many Sustainable Development Goals has been uneven, a powerful "means of implementation" is often hiding in plain sight: volunteerism. According to the  2026 State of the World's Volunteerism Report (SWVR), an estimated 2.1 billion people—34.5 percent of the global working-age population—volunteer every single month.

Economics is often understood as a science about money. Because of that, it may seem far removed from volunteering. But that is a misunderstanding. At its core, economics is about how individuals, organisations, communities, and societies use limited resources to meet relatively unlimited wants and needs. In that sense, volunteering is not outside economics at all. Every day, volunteers help meet needs that would otherwise remain unmet, whether in local communities or across the world.

This is also why economics can offer useful language for thinking about volunteering.
 

Volunteerism is not a transaction of time or skill. It is a long-term investment in relationships — in the social fabric that nurtures the spirit of ubuntu within communities, where giving and receiving come together to build trust, shared humanity, and collective empowerment. This understanding is particularly important in a world shaped by overlapping crises — protracted conflict, climate-related disasters, public health challenges, and deepening social divisions. Across these contexts, the capacity of people to trust one another and act collectively is under increasing strain, even as it becomes more essential.

At first glance, it’s just cables—hundreds of them, tangled and hidden from view. But these wires carry the work of an entire organization. Every email sent, system accessed, and meeting joined depends on what runs quietly through them. Such is the information and communication technology backbone of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV), a network built for today—and tomorrow.