Youth Friendly Health Services were established in Moldova by the Government, in partnership with UNICEF. The initiative engaged more than 45,000 young people in the promotion of Agenda 2030 and volunteerism, while also giving them a chance to become more aware of healthcare and their wellbeing. Vulnerable groups like those who suffer from drug addiction or commercial sex also had the opportunity to take an HIV test, visit doctors and consult psychologists confidentially

Law school seemed to be a logical choice for me as I was an avid reader of history and early on in life, I became transfixed by how every positive social change, whether in my own country, India, or the world at large, could be traced to much-needed amendments in legal frameworks.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) does not discriminate by race, gender, geography, income, age or sex. Regardless of who you are, the type of job you have, or the lifestyle you lead, COVID-19 has shaken societies around the world and upended lives and livelihoods. It has forced governments to respond rapidly and develop response and recovery plans.

Before UNDP, I worked at the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union (EU) in Brussels, Belgium – working closely with the Agriculture and Environment Unit and engaging with the EU’s Task Force for Rural Africa. This provided me with development experience in an agricultural context. As a recent graduate and practitioner in the field of Agricultural Economics, it has been a challenging yet compelling transition to dive into the approaches to prevent violent extremism (PVE). --Tomas Kral, UN Youth Volunteer, UNDP

Nizar (24), Raymonda (28), and Zeinab (27) serve as UN Youth Volunteers in Water/Irrigation Engineering, assisting with the upgrade of existing irrigation infrastructure. “The project consists of the rehabilitation of existing damaged irrigation canals and the transformation of earthen canals to concrete canals,” Raymonda explains. In many regions of the country, very old earthen canals used to transmit water to agricultural lands cause massive water losses.

Despite the arduous situation occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, Elza kept working remotely during the lockdown, giving more than 640 job applicants a second chance to find a job by correcting technical errors in their application documents.

Despite high enrollment rates in formal education, youth (aged 15-24) unemployment in Jordan is 37.4 per cent, more than double the world average. Unemployment of young Jordanian women is even greater.  Jordan is one of the countries worldwide with the lowest levels of female participation in the workforce, with 40 per cent of women aged 15-24 and 55 per cent of women aged 25-39 unemployed.

 In times of emergency, the demand for information is exceedingly high. Providing people with the right and relevant information they need to stay safe is part of the mission of Mamadou. He coordinates the U-Report and Rapid pro platforms of UNICEF. These are mobile empowerment programmes with more than 10,000 users that connect young people, community members and frontline workers to information that will influence decisions.

The Cities Project, or project for South-South and Triangular Cooperation among Maritime-Continental Silk Road Cities for Sustainable Development, was initiated by UNOSSC in 2017. It promotes South-South and triangular cooperation at the city level, taking advantage of the strategic opportunities offered by the Belt and Road Initiative in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).