Earlier this year, we launched our social integration strategy. Based on considerable research, it sets out a new definition of social integration – emphasizing that it is about more than simply the degree of contact between people but also includes promoting equality and improving people’s levels of activity and participation in their local communities. But encouraging social integration is a meaningless exercise unless people are provided with opportunities to come together. Volunteering does just that.

Women in South Africa give birth to 2.3 children on average translating to a population growth of 1.6 per cent. While South Africa’s fertility rate is substantially lower than those of other African countries (in Ethiopia, for example, women have an average of 4.2 children), it is also considerably higher than in countries of the Global North where most countries show rates of below two children. At the same time, teenage pregnancies are prevalent with nearly 7 per cent of 15 to 19-year old girls giving birth (in comparison, the UK rate is at just over 2 per cent).

Arta has been involved in the Territorial Employment Pact, an innovative joint initiative of the municipality of Gjakovë/Djakovica, Austrian Development Agency and UNDP aiming to promote inclusive local economic development, serving people who are looking for skills and income to achieve a better life. Adfter graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Kosovo, Arta started working in The Ideas Partnership, a non-governmental organization that promotes employment, social inclusion, preservation of cultural heritage and healthy environment.

By far the best part of my job is meeting volunteers. On Wednesday, I met Joseph. He is from Nigeria and a volunteer in Sierra Leone, as part of the Economic Commission of West African states (ECOWAS) Volunteer Programme (EVP), the first regional Volunteer scheme in the world. Joseph Uzaka Munoye is a basic Science teacher at the oldest secondary school in the country, called Anna Walsh, since September 2017. He didn’t hide his appreciation that the joint ECOWAS-UNV team was paying him a courtesy visit to see how his assignment was going.

In Lebanon, three national UN Volunteers, Vicky Kendirjian, Lara Riachi and Rim Kalfayan, joined the Office of the Minister of State for Women’s Affairs (OMSWA) to support the latter and the Lebanese government in addressing priorities pertaining to women's affairs. Promoting the advancement of the status of women in all areas of life, especially in terms of political participation, directly contributes to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 

Finally, we are reaching our destination, after nearly 700 kilometers on a bumpy road. The jeep approaches a small town laid in the midst of the endless steppe. There we meet E., an elected representative from a Citizens’ Representative Hural, which is the name for local self-governing bodies in Mongolia.

EDUCATION AND EMPOWERMENT KEY IN CONFLICT SITUATIONS Hassane Abdoulsalamou has been serving as a national UN Volunteer with IOM since November 2016. He supports a project for the empowerment of youth in Niger (AJPANI), which offers youth at risk of conflict opportunities to develop through socio-economic participation and mechanisms faciliting participation in decision-making and peacebuilding

In 1999, two large humanitarian crises were unfolding: Kosovo and East Timor. The United Nations was tasked to support local authorities in both places to establish administrative and governance structures.

Ann Kamunya is an international UN Volunteer with UNHCR in Ankara, Turkey, where she she joined as a UN Volunteer Associate Refugee Status Determination Officer in December 2016. This is not Ann's first volunteer experience. Prior to Turkey, she served with UNHCR as a national UN Volunteer in Nairobi and then in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, delivering for refugees who had been forcibly displaced from their home countries due to war or persecution.

Since August 2017, close to 700,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, creating the world’s largest refugee camp in an area that was before a forest on the border with Myanmar. According to UNFPA, more than half of the new arrivals are women and girls. To respond to the sharp increase in pregnant women, new mothers and newborns in need of care, five UN Volunteers are now serving with UNFPA in Bangladesh.