Year 2020. After this one-year life-changing journey, I got my certificate and shared it on my LinkedIn profile, tagging the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme. With that another exciting journey began: people from all over the world started liking, sharing and asking me to talk through my experience with them. From Africa to Asia, more than 2,000 people felt inspired by two simple sentences I wrote when sharing my UN Volunteer Certificate of Service.

So, what does “move towards more people-centered solutions” mean in practice? The answer is surprisingly straightforward. It resides in the opportunities created for citizens to meaningfully engage in the issues affecting them. The more engagement is secured, the more impactful will development initiatives be. From this perspective, volunteering is perhaps the greatest and most underutilized asset in development assistance today.

The team of UN Volunteers in Serbia comprises 65 such dedicated young Roma as Silvija, Kristina and Meti. They have been trained to become activists, fighting for the inclusion of Roma, against discrimination and social injustice and supporting the vulnerable members of the Roma community. 

Resilience in Zhouqu  UN Volunteer Zeng Yunheng has been serving as a Project Coordinator for the United Nation’s Development Programme (UNDP) - Demonstration Project for Poverty Reduction and Resilience Construction - in Zhouqu County, Gansu Province in China since November 2019. Due to geological and geographical conditions, Zhouqu is one of the worst-hit areas by natural hazards in the country.

Last year "Myropolis" gathered nearly 200 young people from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) to build city of peace: teenagers participated in educational and artistic activities that helped them to learn how to conduct negotiations for peace and recovery – important knowledge when you live in the conflict affected areas. Many of participants never left their villages before "Myropolis" sessions. Situation in these lands is really fragile and challenging: no descent roads, villages are very difficult to reach, parents do not allow children even to leave the houses.

Acting as a UNDP representative, Helen co-led the Community Engagement sub-group of the pillar and was tasked to do a rapid assessment of community engagement needs, gaps and challenges.  There were two essential things we could do: support the health care system to address cases and enhance risk communication and community engagement to help slow down and reduce the spread of the disease. --Dr Samuel Doe, UNDP’s Resident Representative in Sierra Leone

The project for sustaining peace in Tunisia through the inclusion of young people at the local level is being implemented by UNDP, UN Women and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), with the support of the UN Peacebuilding Fund, and in partnership with seven different municipalities. Each of the UN Volunteers is responsible for the coordination of the project in one municipality, where social cohesion and resilience are promoted through the inclusion of the most marginalized young women and men.

I remember sitting at home in Mwanza, Tanzania, in July 2017, and reading about the work United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme was doing on my phone. As I read further, my excitement grew, and I stumbled upon the United Nations Online Volunteering platform. I quickly followed the link, read on, and in 10 minutes, I was able to understand how it works. I was delighted by the prospects of using the platform. I loved the impact I could make anywhere in the world from the comfort of my home. --Kido Mwamyenyelwa

Nizar (24), Raymonda (28) and Zeinab (27) serve as UN Youth Volunteers in Water/Irrigation Engineering, assisting with the upgrade of existing irrigation infrastructure. "The project targets the rehabilitation of existing damaged irrigation canals and the transformation of earthen canals to concrete canals," Raymonda explains.

The SDG AI Lab is introducing big data and artificial intelligence into the everyday work of the UN agencies and other development partners. A partnership between the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, UNDP amd the Istanbul International Centre for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD) has faciliated this process.