Janvier goes from door to door to visit families on a regular basis, and during discussions he identifies some family members whose births have not been registered.

Countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea have witnessed some of the highest levels of migrations over the past few years, leaving millions of migrants and refugees in need of critical assistance and life support.

Since the beginning of 2019, 286 UN Volunteers, including 154 nationals and 132 internationals support the protection of refugees and migration management with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). UN Volunteers positively impact the living conditions of the refugees, in Chad and 13 countries in West and Central Africa.  This year, in addition, UNV is providing young refugees in

On 21 June 2017 Ojulu, a refugee from Ethiopia, first arrived in the Kalobeyei settlement. The move was part of a camp consolidation and closure exercise that saw the relocation of non-Somali refugees from the Dadaab complex to the Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana County. “When I first arrived in Kalobeyei everything was new. I left my work, family, friends in Dadaab and was entering a new place,” Ojulu explains.

In August 2017, the humanitarian situation in the Rakhine State of Myanmar triggered a large influx of Rohingya civilians to cross into Bangladesh to Cox's Bazar. Since then, an estimated 655,000 Rohingyas refugees have crossed into Bangladesh, increasing the total Rohingya population residing in the Cox's Bazar area to over 866,000. The speed and scale of the refugee influx has resulted in a critical humanitarian emergency that is being handled by UN agencies, other humanitarian partners and volunteers.

Air pollutants (caused by two coal-fired power plants, the high intensity of road transport, and  household burning of wood and coal), along with poor waste management, abuse of the natural resources and widespread use of fertile land for construction, are seriously threatening the health of Kosovars -  children and elderly in particular. “Healthier Kosovo”, a joint project of UNDP, UNV and WHO, supported by the government of Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, responds to this serious, yet often neglected problem.

Since the end of the civil war in 2004, Liberia has faced many challenges, the most recent ones being the management of the Ebola epidemic, the closure of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia (UNMIL); and a historical democratic transition after the elections. Through all of these, UN Volunteers have made significant and effective contributions to peace and development in the country. 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly recognizes volunteer groups as key actors to achieve the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Following the launch of the 2030 Agenda in 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Plan of Action for Integrating Volunteerism into the 2030 Agenda, through Resolution A/RES/70/129 "Integrating volunteering into peace and development: the plan of action for the next decade and beyond".

The General Assembly designated May 29th as the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers by adopting resolution 57/129 in 2002. Today, we recognise the more than 88,000 troops and police from 124 countries, joined by nearly 14,000 civilians, who are deployed to UN peacekeeping missions around the world. Over the past decades, UN Volunteers have been part of these important efforts to support peacekeeping operations in war-torn areas. Watch our historic video on UN Volunteers in Peacekeeping to see where and how.

In 2019, over 1,500 UN Volunteers are assigned to peacekeeping operations worldwide, of which 1,317 are serving in Africa. In West and Central Africa specifically, they play an active role to protect the most vulnerable, through various assignments in Human Rights, Civil Affairs, Political Affairs and Logistics. In addition, a significant number of UN Volunteer Movement Control Officers and Air Operations Assistants provide technical support to facilitate and coordinate the movements of peacekeepers and civilian personnel of the missions.