In 2013, that conviction brought me to join as a national UN Volunteer Specialist with UNDP in the Dominican Republic. Together with over 1,000 volunteers, I coordinated a national survey across all 32 provinces in which more than 220,000 Dominicans participated, placing the country 8th out of 193 nations in a global citizens' consultation on development priorities. That experience confirmed something I have carried ever since: when people are genuinely invited to shape decisions that affect their lives, they show up. Every time. Because participation is not charity. It is dignity.

Four Years of ResilienceIn 2022, when the war started, Lysychansk was occupied. Like millions of Ukrainians, I became an internally displaced person. “IDP” is a term often used in reports and briefings. For me, it means leaving behind familiar streets, memories, and any sense of permanence.It means rebuilding stability while knowing the place you belong is no longer accessible.

Our age has no shortage of upheaval. Displacement today is not episodic; it is widespread. Conflicts endure, climates shift, and fragile systems strain under repeated shocks. In such a world, sympathy alone is insufficient. It must be organized, sustained, and given direction. Solidarity must become service.

This reality is especially visible in grassroots sport and diaspora communities, including those in the Western Balkans. In these contexts, volunteerism is not a supplementary activity; it is the foundation on which systems operate. Evidence from sport-based Erasmus+ projects and volunteer management initiatives across Europe consistently shows that local sport organizations depend on volunteers not only for delivery, but for governance, coordination, and long-term sustainability. 

That is not only a statistic to admire. It is a development asset of extraordinary scale. Yet for too long, volunteerism has been treated as a backdrop to national development, invisible in plans, budgets, and policies. My team at UNV has spent last four years working to change that. We have provided technical support to governments across Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Arab States, and Europe to formally embed volunteerism into their national plans and sectoral strategies. 

The contribution of traditional partners to UNV is not symbolic. It is practical and strategic. 

One example is the idea of potential output: the highest level of output that can be sustained over time. In standard economics, this is usually discussed at the level of whole economies. But the basic intuition is broader. Societies can increase what they are able to sustain over time, either by increasing the resources available to them, including human labour, or by using existing resources more effectively.

Too often, however, volunteerism is still framed in narrower terms — as an exchange of time, skills, or resources from those who have to those who do not. This framing aligns neatly with conventional development metrics and reporting systems, but it misses something fundamental. At its core, volunteerism is relational. It reflects how individuals and communities remain connected to one another, particularly in moments of uncertainty and disruption.

I saw this gap up close, when I attended this year's Humanitarian Network and Partnerships Week in March 2026 in Geneva, a global forum for all humanitarian actors, including volunteer-involving organizations. Across discussions, one message came through clearly: business as usual will not work. This year, the focus was on humanitarian reset and what it means for the people affected by the humanitarian crisis. 

Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has made a deliberate effort to elevate volunteerism—from declaring 2020 the Year of Volunteers, to championing 2024 as the Year of the Volunteer Movement in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and creating momentum toward 2026 as the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development.