At the frontline of United Nations support are volunteers. Over the years, many of us have responded to different crises as UN Volunteers. Crises settings take us to all corners of the world. As a UN Volunteer in the late 90s, I witnessed the birth of a new country: Timor-Leste. Here, I helped restore basic services in the region of Ermera, so children could go back to school and lead normal lives. In Cambodia, after the loss of many lives due to civil war, I volunteered to promote and protect human rights.

Whether we speak of the COVID-19 pandemic, frozen conflicts, or any other type of crisis, we need competent human capacity. Effective deployment of such expertise to shoulder our efforts and services, as well as our country offices, exists in the UN system – in the form of the UN Volunteers (UNV) programme.

UN Volunteers Celine Rabbat, Line Bayram and Zein Ayoub are supporting Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as Associate Human Rights Officers with the Regional Office for the Middle East based in Beirut, Lebanon. They conduct media monitoring and research to document the measures countries have taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent impact of these measures for vulnerable groups. In addition, they report incidents such as hate speech, which have increased in recent months, particularly towards migrants.

My name is Dr Esther Njinembo, from Cameroon. I am engaged as a UN Volunteer Technical Officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) in the team for tobacco and reduction of other non-communicable disease risk factors. I serve as an African Woman Health Champion* in Congo Brazzaville.

At a point where the world strives to respond to the threat of COVID-19 and recover from its impact, calls for gender equality are at the core of efforts to building back better. In response to the crisis, there is an emphasis on having more women in leadership as a key to achieving an equal future. This article highlights how women UN Volunteer Peacekeepers in Sudan continue to challenge stereotypes while they combat the pandemic.

UN Volunteers Rosana Jimenez and Yasmin Lapeira began serving with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Venezuela during one of the most difficult moments in recent times. Both UN Volunteers took up their assignments when the pandemic hit South America last spring. Yasmin was deployed in Venezuela thanks to the Special Voluntary Fund (SVF), of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme with funding from a number of donors.  

"Digital transformation is less about technology and more about people. You can pretty much buy any technology, but your ability to adapt to an even more digital future depends on developing the next generation of skills, closing the gap between talent supply and demand, and future-proofing your own and others’ potential." This perspective, from the Harvard Business Review resonates with us at UNV, where we recognize that in order to deliver on our highly ambitious Digital Transformation project, skilled digital professionals are indispensable.

Collaboration has always been the heart of UNV. The extraordinary demands brought about by COVID-19 have put to test UNV’s role as an enabler of joint action by the United Nations and volunteers. Almost a year into the pandemic, it is time to recap and reflect: How well did UNV pass the test? What have we learned? And finally, where do we go from here?