Volunteerism, as a universal social behavior, is a critical resource for community resilience. Mutual aid, self-help, and reciprocity are important coping strategies for isolated and vulnerable communities.   In the absence of wider provisions and services, volunteers can help marginalized groups meet their needs.

Farah is only 10 months old. Her pain cannot be expressed by words: only through tears. Farah spends nights and days crying because of her unimaginable suffering from malnutrition. She lives with her parents in Ash Shamayatayn district in Taiz Governorate. “There is nothing that I can do” her father told us. Although he is a college graduate, he has not been working since the war started – RDP staff, Yemen

International Volunteer Day is celebrated by many non-governmental organizations, civil society, and the private sector, among others. It is also marked and supported by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme. UNV coordinates a campaign to promote IVD every year, building on the impact volunteers have in communities, nationally and globally for peace and development.

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme selects themes and campaigns to provide special meaning to IVD, creating a unifying concept for those who wish to join. The IVD 2016 campaign “#GlobalApplause – give volunteers a hand” cheered on the efforts of volunteers in peace building and sustainable development. The IVD 2017 campaign “Volunteers Act First. Here. Everywhere.” recognized the work of volunteers on the ground in times of crisis through events and celebrations in a display of solidarity.

These are some of the findings from a review conducted by International Labour Organisation (ILO) of national practices on the measurement of volunteer work, presented at the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in Geneva.  The research was undertaken as part of a UNV-ILO partnership on volunteer measurement which was established in 2017.

  The Voluntary National Reviews confirm firstly that volunteers remain important partners for implementation of the SDGs across diverse contexts. For example, Andorra, Guinea, Jamaica, Malta and Vietnam discuss volunteer efforts in the context of disaster risk reduction and environmental protection; ¯ˇLithuania, Saudi Arabia and Togo highlight the role of volunteers in education, employment and poverty reduction; while Bahrain, Bhutan, Kiribati and Lebanon link volunteering to community engagement and social cohesion. 

The case of these two doesn’t stand in isolation. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 31 people are displaced every minute across the globe.

Iraq has a long way to go towards peace and prosperity. The United Nations is doing its best to support the Iraqi people on this path and make the future bright for families like the one I met in Mosul. Behind this reconstruction, there is a lot of hard work done by UN agencies, local contractors and UN Volunteers. Among them is Gladys Gbegnedji, a civil engineer from Spain, who came to Iraq to help improve construction designs.

The report is submitted in response to the request by the General Assembly in its resolution 70/129 that the Secretary-General report at its seventy-third session on the implementation of that resolution, including the plan of action to integrate volunteering into peace and development policies and programmes.

Kenyan communities have always voluntarily organized themselves, whether formally or informally, to help each other in times of need and in times of celebration. At independence, this volunteering spirit was adopted by the government of the day as “harambee”, loosely translated as “pooling resources for community development”. This spirit of harambee is the backbone of today’s volunteerism in Kenya.