Drawing on original research in 15 communities across the globe, the 2018 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR) presents new evidence on the role of volunteerism in strengthening community resilience. Based on the report's emerging findings, the project is organizing Policy Challenges to bring in different groups of people to make policy suggestions, some of which may be incorporated into the final report.
POLICY CHALLENGE WITH VOLUNTEER INVOLVING ORGANIZATIONS
A Policy Challenge was held last 24 November at the Lilongwe Technical College in Malawi with university students and representatives volunteer involving organizations such as Red Cross-Malawi, World University Services of Canada (WUSC), Makwelero youth organization, Corps Africa and UNV Malawi Field Unit. Key among the issues raised and discussed included the lack of government policy on volunteerism in Malawi and lack of information and engagement of the youth on the opportunities and benefits of volunteerism. These were identified as barriers that hinder youth from offering their services as formal and informal volunteers to organizations and their communities in Malawi. At the end of the session participants put forward their recommendations on what governments, UN Agencies and VIOs can do to strengthen volunteerism for community resilience.
INTERESTED IN HOSTING A POLICY CHALLENGE?
Hosting a SWVR 2018 Policy Challenges is an opportunity to review findings from the SWVR field research and present solutions that could be taken up by UN Member States (national and/or local government level), civil society, and UN agencies and programmes as part of resilience-building efforts. We are looking for diverse groups to discuss the emerging findings from the field research and to tell us how they would respond. We would particularly like to encourage inputs from all groups that are under-represented in decision-making processes relating to risk reduction and resilience. For more information, visit www.unv.org/swvr/swvr-policy-challenge