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UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS (UNV)
United Nations Volunteers (UNV) was established by Resolution 2659 (XXV) of the UN General Assembly on 7 December 1970, which decided to "establish within the existing framework of the United Nations system, with effect from 1 January 1971, an international group of volunteers, the members of which shall be designated collectively and individually as United Nations Volunteers." The programme is largely funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and administered by UNDP's Executive Board. UNV strives to promote volunteer contributions to development by: When mobilizing volunteers, UNV works in partnership with international and national organizations and governments to provide a wide range of technical cooperation activities. These include support to humanitarian aid programmes; support to community based participatory development, especially among low-income groups grappling with the root causes of poverty; and assistance to the UN's peace-making and peace-building activities. UNV's comparative advantage among international volunteer sending agencies is its global, multilateral character. It can mobilize volunteers from all over the world, including from developing countries themselves. It is willing to adapt its policies and procedures to local conditions and needs. As an intergovernmental yet volunteer organization it addresses the concerns of governments and non governmental bodies, and it has the advantage of building on the UNDP and UN system's institutional presence and development involvement in virtually every developing country. UNV's current strategy is to emphasize participatory approaches in the organization's development assistance. Since 1994, there has been a move toward mainstreaming the approach to all areas of UNV's work. Participation along with gender awareness are two approaches stressed in Strategy 2000, which gives a framework for the way in which UNV develops its projects and programmes in the key sectors of environment, urban development and preventative/curative development. Strategy 2000 (1997-2000) emphasizes the value of grassroots development initiatives. In particular, some of the new features that strengthen the programme include a greater use of national UN Volunteers, strengthening orientation of the UN Volunteers, and focusing on the volunteer ethos and spirit of volunteerism. UNDP's Executive Board biennially debates a report on the work of UNV. UNV itself holds an intergovernmental meeting every five years. It also holds regular consultative meetings with the UNV cooperating organizations and national focal points, which promote the programme, and recruits on its behalf (in the case of cooperating organizations in industrialized countries also funds the resulting assignments in part or whole). The average annual cost of a UNV assignment is US$35,000. The total programme thus represents an outlay of about US$75 million. There are some 60 international and 70 locally-recruited staff working for UNV. About 70 UNV programme officers (not staff but themselves also volunteers) work in UNDP field offices in developing countries, supporting UNV programmes under the auspices of UNDP resident representatives.
Since 1971, UNV has fielded about 20,000 volunteers. Some 2,500 UNV specialists and field workers are serving in more than 130 countries. About 70% are drawn from developing countries and 30% from industrialized ones; 62% are men and 38% are women. UNVs are fully qualified and experienced professional men and women from 108 fields of work; their average age is 40. They are usually practitioners who share their skills at the working level on a peer basis. UNVs must have a first and/or postgraduate degree, or equivalent technical qualifications; they must also have a minimum of two, but preferably several, years working experience. Offers of service from women and retired personnel are particularly welcome. Contracts are usually for two years, with exceptions in humanitarian relief, democratization and human rights activities, and the United Nations Short Term Advisory Resources (UNISTAR) programme. UNVs receive a monthly volunteer living allowance to cover basic housing and utilities costs. Sickness and accident insurance is provided, as is return airfare and a modest resettlement allowance for volunteers residing and working outside their country of origin. UNV will meet the costs of up to three dependants. UNVs work in five main fields of activity: technical cooperation for development; supporting development initiatives of community based organizations and NGOs; humanitarian relief and rehabilitation; peace-building including democratization and the promotion of human rights; and short term international advisory resources for development of entrepreneurship (through the UNISTAR programme). Through participatory development programmes, UNV supports indigenous organizations that promote self reliance in development through grassroots participation. Since 1976, UNV has been a major operational unit for executing youth programmes, especially pilot projects that enhance the participation of youth in development activities. Within its overall policy of promoting national execution, UNVs serve in government programmes assisted by UNDP and executed by UN agencies such as FAO, ILO, WFP, UNIDO, UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, UNHCR, UNDCP and UNESCO. Programmes may also be executed by developing country governments or by UNV itself on behalf of governments, as well as with the initiatives of local communities. Two thirds of UNVs serve in the least developed, landlocked or island countries. Some 40% are in Africa, 30% in the Asia and Pacific region, and the rest work in the Arab world, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Baltic countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States. To mark voluntary services' key contributions to the development process, 5 December is observed annually as International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development. UNV headquarters functions as international focal point for the event. In addition, UNV serves as focal point for the UN-designated International Year of Volunteers 2001 (www.iyv2001.org, e-mail: team@iyv2001.org). NGO Relations UNV is an observer at the annual General Assembly of the Bonn based European Forum on Development Service, whose members represent the great majority of Europe's overseas development NGOs and state sponsored bilateral volunteer programmes. UNV also cooperates with the Coordinating Committee on International Voluntary Service, which is based in Paris and sponsored by UNESCO. Its members include many NGOs from around the world in the fields of short term and work camp volunteer service for humanitarian and developmental purposes and for international exchange. To promote its programmes and recruitment, UNV relies on the major volunteer sending agencies, particularly in industrialized countries. Many of them are NGOs, although they may have significant state support for their volunteer activities. These include Australian Volunteers International, World University Service of Canada/Entraide Universitaire Mondiale du Canada, Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke (Denmark), l'Association française des volontaires du progrès and l'Association générale des intervenants retraités (France), Gruppo di Voluntariato Civile (Italy), Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (Japan), Volunteer Service Abroad (New Zealand), Voluntary Service Overseas (UK), and Peace Corps (United States). Development NGOs and the intergovernmental UNV have a common enemy: poverty. UNV's approach to poverty and its eradication is based upon the assumption that the starting point for any strategy focusing on addressing causes as distinct from symptoms of poverty must-if it is to be sustainable-build upon the courage, resilience and above all the resources available at the local level. UNV focuses on ways of mobilizing these resources to catalyse and sustain local initiatives. UNV is becoming increasingly involved in poverty eradication activities, from advice at the macro-level policy and programme formulation stage, to support to village and urban low income self help efforts. UNV's programmes continue to play an important role in promoting community participation in countries that have internalized the concept and approach, and in developing methodologies for application throughout UNV's efforts in the field of poverty. A number of recent initiatives are demonstrating the range of possible interventions in the field of poverty and other development sectors in which UNV can usefully play a role. The following are a few examples of these initiatives.
UNV receives an increasing number of requests to participate in the planning, design and formulation of countrywide poverty oriented programmes. In certain cases, UNV has subsequently assumed the responsibility of executing or associate agency (Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Egypt, the Gambia, Indonesia, Lesotho, Nepal, Niger, Swaziland, Tanzania and Togo). One UNV project designed to alleviate poverty is located at Ecuador's Imbakucha-San Pablo Lake basin, home to some 38 different indigenous groups. In addition to ongoing inter-ethnic strife, poverty and pollution are also serious obstacles to overcome. To help address these challenges a team of national UNVs (NUNVs) is joining efforts with CEPCU, a local NGO that has sought for the last several years to establish a framework of cooperation between the local authorities, community-based and international organizations and the lake's inhabitants. NUNVs assist the people of Imbakucha on three fronts: finding sustainable ways of generating an income, strengthening their institutions, and working to improve the lake's environmental condition. They also promote initiatives in environmental education, the formulation and execution of micro-projects, training of local staff, and development of community action plans. UNV recognizes the role of increasing access to microfinance services as an effective tool for economic and social empowerment of the poor. In December 1997 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 52/194 on the Role of Microcredit in the Eradication of Poverty, which welcomes "the launching of different microcredit initiatives and acknowledges their important contributions to the eradication of poverty, empowerment of women and social upliftment." UNV's main involvement in microcredit is at the community level, making use of UN Volunteers' particular ability to reach out to the most marginalized groups of society, often living in remote areas. In addition to working at the grassroots level to facilitate access of the poor to microcredit, UN Volunteers have participated in institutional capacity building for organizations engaged in microfinance. A proven strength of the UNV programme is its ability to facilitate linkages between local microcredit initiatives, policy makers in government and the UN system through feeding back information from the grassroots. UNV plays key roles in the area of microfinance. As a volunteer placement agency, UNV supplies international and national volunteer specialists for microcredit projects and programmes. In collaboration with other UN agencies and NGOs, UNV works as a partner in programming and implementing such projects. The organization also designs and executes pilot projects in the microfinance sector.
Another area of UNV concentration is assistance to the most vulnerable sectors of the population. UNV strives to work with partner organizations in areas of activity such as street children, the disabled and safe motherhood, with poverty alleviation as the aim in addressing all such groups or individual cases. UN Volunteers are assisting the disabled in countries including Burkina Faso, Cambodia and Mali. UN volunteers--lawyers, organization development specialists, human rights experts and media specialists--work in a network of seven Central American countries to promote the Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly in training local judges and making suggestions on how to modify youth criminal law to keep in line with the convention. UNVs also support civil rights committees founded by young people and advise governments on the design of programmes and projects guaranteeing children's rights. UNV has joined the United Nations Children's Fund in a pilot project to implement a Child Friendly Cities Initiative in Port Harcourt (Nigeria). The global initiative is being launched in a number of cities in order to encourage all local stakeholders to form partnerships to defend the rights and address needs of urban children, especially the poor and most disadvantaged.
Organizing and observing elections and supporting humanitarian relief operations have been key areas of work for UN Volunteers since the early 1990s. Thousands of professionals have since been recruited by the Bonn-based UNV programme to help with elections in Cambodia, Mozambique, South Africa, Haiti, Liberia, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Bosnia, Indonesia and East Timor. Some 200 UN volunteers were sent to Kosovo in 1999 to help rebuild the territory's civil society, in particular to encourage the assistance of thousands of idle young people in rebuilding institutions. UNV fielded 500 volunteer district electoral officers and medical personnel for East Timor's "popular consultation" ballot on 30 August 1999. More than 90 European Union electoral monitors, recruited from 13 European Union countries by UNV, assisted Indonesian electoral officials, political parties and local communities during the 1999 elections. In teams of two persons, monitors were deployed in 13 provinces throughout the country. During their stay they were in close contact with local counterparts to observe and report on the campaigning activities and conduct of the elections. HIV/AIDS UNV's involvement in HIV/AIDS prevention and control dates from 1990 when, in close coordination with the UNDP/WHO Global Programme on AIDS, a series of field missions identified a niche for volunteers. Particularly at local level there was a clear need to raise capacity of poor communities to deal with the socio economic impact of the pandemic. UNV specialists and field workers serve alongside local staff, particularly in Africa (Benin, Botswana, Central African Republic, the Gambia, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia). They build on the enterprise, resilience and courage of affected groups, using an interdisciplinary approach. UNV also has HIV/AIDS programmes in Cambodia and Kazakhstan. Efforts have focused on information and education programmes; training in counselling; community and home based care; support, self employment and income generation; and strengthening local self help groups and support networks, and training of local cadres of volunteers, social workers and community workers. UNV offers systematic training to all its programme officers in this area.
The application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to human development is one of the most recent and rapidly moving avenues of development work. UNV has embraced the call of the Secretary General of "Information for All" and is putting ICT on the priority list. This is an area, in particular, where young people can make a substantive difference to development initiatives and processes. UN volunteers can help harness the potential of ICT to achieve social and economic benefits, primarily at the local and community level where they concentrate their efforts. Working in partnership with other institutions, they focus not on the immediate technologies but rather on the impact they have on development and poverty. In Egypt, UNV has teamed up with UNDP and institutions from government and the private sector to launch the first "community telecenters" in the country, named Technology Access Community Centers, or TACCs (www.tacc.egnet.net). The three telecenters, located in Sharkeya Governorate, allow public access to computers and connection to the Internet, provide training on the technologies to the community, and facilitate the application of ICT to various development sectors. Assigned to the telecenters is a team of national and international UNV specialists helping the communities use ICT facilities in areas such as health, education, microcredit, agriculture and the strengthening of civil society.
The environment has been a priority area for United Nations volunteers from the programme's outset. One of the very first UNVs, in 1971, worked as a wildlife conservationist in Chad. Since then, UN volunteers have worked on a wide range of environmental and natural resource management issues. In 1998, 8% of UN volunteers were involved in environmental activities in various roles as technical assistance specialists, community promoters, trainers and information/knowledge managers. The following environmental areas have been proposed for prioritized engagement by UNV within the context of poverty eradication programmes: water and sanitation, biodiversity conservation, desertification and drought, sustainable agriculture, and solid waste management. They respond to some of the most problematic areas in the environmental field and focus on areas where local action is indispensable to achieve lasting results. In 1997, UNV launched a regional initiative in partnership with UNDP's Office to Combat Desertification and Drought (UNSO). Guided by strategies established in the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), national UNVs are helping to promote National Anti-Desertification Programmes in 15 African countries. The aim is to help ensure that the populations whose livelihoods and survival are affected by the increasing desiccation of land will play a central role in formulating and implementing these programmes. The UN Volunteer specialists also facilitate popular participation in the implementation of the convention through Local Area Development programmes, aimed at stimulating and facilitating local initiatives in combatting desertification. Another UNV project is the Cerro San Gil Ecological Reserve, a populated area covering 47,000 hectares in Eastern Guatemala. Protecting the environment starts with improving the living conditions for its inhabitants. To address this, a team of national UN volunteers has joined forces with the environmental non-governmental organization FUNDAECO, which is mandated to administer the ecological reserve. They have introduced new methods of cultivation to preserve the soil and generate income. Women, who interact most closely with the environment, participate in all aspects of the project.
To help make its work more widely known among governments, partners, businesses and the general public and to promote a better understanding of the projects involving thousands of volunteers working in more than 130 countries, UNV's External Relations Group has initiated the production of publications and other information materials. These include: UNVNews magazine (tri lingual, quarterly)
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