Just like the rest of the world, the battle against the pandemic is still ongoing in Tunisia. The Coronavirus has been an opportunity to learn more about the potential of volunteering, and what volunteers, who were among the first responders, can do in a health crisis context. They have been yielding impactful results and supporting with different components of pandemic preparedness and response. 

Across the region, people volunteered to raise awareness of the need for urgent action for humanity’s future. Thousands more pledged to continue volunteering every year. UN Volunteers are important to our work with forcefully displaced persons in the region – thanks to them, we are able to reach people in need. --Ms Clementine Nkweta-Salami, Regional Bureau Director for the East, Horn and Great Lakes Regions of Africa, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in her social media message

With sincere thanks for the continued support of our partners, we reflect on partnership highlights with four of our UN partners – the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Women, UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The celebrations we had in the region were as diverse as they were engaging.

International Volunteer Day 2021 called for the recognition of volunteers and volunteerism as powerful and cross-cutting ways of achieving the SDGs and building an inclusive world. A number of UN partner representatives, influencers and national authorities shared via social media their messages of acknowledgement and appreciation for the support of volunteers.

In Ukraine, events to mark IVD kicked off on 5 December, with a workshop on Innovations for long-term volunteering. The development of volunteerism for youth was the topic of discussion at a major online event held on 7 December, hosted with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and facilitated by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

This group of UN Volunteers (six women and nine men) was part of a team comprising one thousand personnel during the peak period of the elections – described as "the biggest electoral assistance mission in the history of UN’s practice worldwide," according to Dr Aamir Arain, Director of UNAMI Electoral Assistance and UN Principal Electoral Advisor. However, these volunteers "were a significant part of this undertaking, serving in both substantive, technical and administrative aspects of the complex electoral assistance programme," adds Dr Arain.

According to the 2018 Latinobarómetro report, more than half of Latin Americans (56 per cent) do not trust the media, and the democratic support is only 48 per cent. In addition, information contamination (or info-pollution) and bad information are tools that cause political polarization and misinformation and undermine democracy.

Within the framework of the joint project "Sustainable Development of the System of Social Protection of the Population: Promotion of Programmes on Social Integration and Inclusion," UNDP inaugurated a centre for employment and professional rehabilitation of persons with disabilities.

Within two weeks of arriving, Ami started bleeding – enough to warrant a visit to a health centre. But workers at the centre were on strike, so she was sent to another facility, which didn’t have an ultrasound machine to diagnose her condition.