The spirit of altruism and volunteering is a core tenet of the United Nations, where individuals around the world can contribute to the UN goals of universal betterment in progressive social, environmental and economic transformation. Volunteerism in the UN is championed especially by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, an organization that works with partners to integrate volunteers into development programming and promote the value and global recognition of volunteerism.

As part of the next State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, UNV commissioned a study based on original multi-country quantitative data to understand patterns of volunteer participation during the global COVID-19 pandemic, volunteer motivations and experiences, and what these might mean for people’s voluntary participation in the remainder of the Decade of Action.

While there are an estimated 370 million indigenous people around the world, most remain largely excluded from mainstream decision-making processes. As a result, despite making up 5 per cent of the world’s population, 15 per cent of indigenous people suffer from extreme poverty.

The International Volunteer Day was celebrated in Mali and chaired by Prime Minister Mobido Keita who reiterated, in the presence of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme Deputy Executive Coordinator, Nicola Harrington, that the national authorities are committed to promote volunteerism.