In 2013, that conviction brought me to join as a national UN Volunteer Specialist with UNDP in the Dominican Republic. Together with over 1,000 volunteers, I coordinated a national survey across all 32 provinces in which more than 220,000 Dominicans participated, placing the country 8th out of 193 nations in a global citizens' consultation on development priorities. That experience confirmed something I have carried ever since: when people are genuinely invited to shape decisions that affect their lives, they show up. Every time. Because participation is not charity. It is dignity.

Numbers are not enough. Measuring volunteering must go beyond hours and activities to show real change in people’s lives, communities and support systems. The webinar opened with remarks by Olga Zubritskaya-Devyatkina, UNV Regional Manager for Arab States, and was facilitated by Professor Matt Baillie Smith and Dr Bianca Fadel of Northumbria University. Drawing on Chapter 6 of the 2026 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, it brought together researchers and practitioners from crisis-affected contexts.

This reality is especially visible in grassroots sport and diaspora communities, including those in the Western Balkans. In these contexts, volunteerism is not a supplementary activity; it is the foundation on which systems operate. Evidence from sport-based Erasmus+ projects and volunteer management initiatives across Europe consistently shows that local sport organizations depend on volunteers not only for delivery, but for governance, coordination, and long-term sustainability. 

“When volunteering is measured well, it becomes visible in plans, policies and government priorities,” said Rafael Diez Medina, Chief Statistician and Director of the Department of Statistics at the International Labour Organization, at the webinar moderated by Yanchun Zhang, Chief Statistician at the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme.Why develop GIVE now?

That is not only a statistic to admire. It is a development asset of extraordinary scale. Yet for too long, volunteerism has been treated as a backdrop to national development, invisible in plans, budgets, and policies. My team at UNV has spent last four years working to change that. We have provided technical support to governments across Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, the Arab States, and Europe to formally embed volunteerism into their national plans and sectoral strategies. 

One example is the idea of potential output: the highest level of output that can be sustained over time. In standard economics, this is usually discussed at the level of whole economies. But the basic intuition is broader. Societies can increase what they are able to sustain over time, either by increasing the resources available to them, including human labour, or by using existing resources more effectively.

Why Evidence matters for VolunteerismOpening the session, Emiliya Asadova, UNV Team Lead for Evidence, stressed the need for stronger and more inclusive data on volunteerism. Without solid evidence, the work of volunteers risks remaining invisible in national policies and development planning—valued in practice, but absent on paper.

Too often, however, volunteerism is still framed in narrower terms — as an exchange of time, skills, or resources from those who have to those who do not. This framing aligns neatly with conventional development metrics and reporting systems, but it misses something fundamental. At its core, volunteerism is relational. It reflects how individuals and communities remain connected to one another, particularly in moments of uncertainty and disruption.

Louise Chamberlain, Deputy Executive Coordinator of UNV, opened the session by situating the discussion in today’s global reality: a world where volunteers continue to respond to crises, support communities and drive development, yet remain largely invisible in formal data systems.The paradox of volunteerism: everywhere, yet not always visible

Across communities in the Global South and worldwide, people dedicate their time, skills, and energy to help others—often without expecting recognition or reward. Consider the community-based groups in Kenya that support research and conservation initiatives for animals and wildlife, the volunteer firefighters in Australia who battle devastating bushfires, or the youth groups across Latin America organizing neighbourhood clean-ups and immunization campaigns.