The Report sets out progress made by Member States and other stakeholders in creating opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to participate in development processes through volunteering and working in partnership with volunteers to address challenges arising from conflicts, disasters and climate change.

As Data Entry Assistant, Reem’s role involves managing grievances under the Emergency Social Safety Net program. She diligently addresses beneficiary grievances and ensures timely resolutions. “I work with various types of data related to grievances, cash assistance distributions, and beneficiary feedback. This data is used to identify trends, monitor program effectiveness, and inform decision-making processes,” notes Reem.

As a Resilience & Emergency Preparedness Program Associate, Wafa has been a driving force behind resilience-building efforts, helping at-risk communities prepare for and adapt to future challenges. “I have provided technical support and assisted in the development of various activities and processes of adaptation fund project submission, including emergency preparedness and response, resilience, and climate change adaptation, ensuring alignment with wider Program policies and guidelines,” she explained.

The war continues unabated in its eleventh month. In this backdrop, Elena Mansour, from the Netherlands, serves as a UN Volunteer in Security Analysis and Training with the World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Bureau in Egypt. She reports on security and political developments regarding food security. This reporting is vital to forecast potential risks for famine.

The call for “decolonizing aid” divides the humanitarian world into those who provide assistance on quasi-colonial terms and the aid recipients, on whom the terms of this aid are imposed, reinforcing dependency, and making the whole system self-serving. The proposed solution is to remove layers of intermediaries before aid reaches the intended recipients and/or change the composition of that layer from foreign to local groups.

The first regional Report of its kind – VCARE showcases the evolution of volunteering practices and the impact of volunteer efforts, emphasizes the value of volunteers' contributions, and identifies best practices in the region's volunteer movement. The Report’s findings offer diverse examples of volunteer actions that can help to fast track the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the region's five countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. 

Bhone's family was among some 1.9 million people affected by Cyclone Mocha. His house was destroyed. But he stood at the fore supporting recovery efforts as part of UNDP’s rapid response and early recovery initiative.

For Zambians, food insecurity is an urgent issue. Around 18 per cent of the country’s rural population require urgent action to protect their livelihoods. A further 15 per cent are only marginally able to meet their food needs, while three per cent of the country’s 17.8m people are already facing considerable food gaps.

A group of 40 UN Volunteers belonging to local communities was deployed by WFP in Iraq’s Duhok Governorate, which is located in the Kurdistan Region. In line with the Public Distribution System reform agenda, this group served alongside field enumerators to register Duhok residents. Serving tirelessly for three months, volunteers supported the registration of the newly issued PDS cards and also updated the residents' demographic information in the system - between 50 to 100 family registrations were carried out daily. Volunteers did so by using digital tablets.