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.

To achieve this, new development patterns must be inclusive, resilient and advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By weaving a strong social fabric within communities, volunteering is at the key intersection of these qualities. When those with local knowledge and insights take collective ownership of local problems, communities are uniquely mobilized around development efforts.

Millions of volunteers are a formidable force for transformation and acceleration of the 2030 Agenda. --Olivier Adam, Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme

Bolivia: Voluntariado en Acción (V.A. - Volunteers in Action) The platform Voluntariado en Acción, promoted by UNV in Bolivia, emerged in 2015 in response to copious inquiries from people regarding how they could get involved with the UN system. It mobilizes people of different ages, skills and education to achieve common goals.

Throughout the event, representatives from Member States, UN entities, civil society, including volunteer organizations, the private sector, academia and the world’s volunteers will come together to reimagine volunteering for the 2030 Agenda. More than 13,000 people have registered their attendance. To join and receive the links to the sessions, please register at volunteerSDGs.org.

Knowledge about volunteering and its practices, dynamics, benefits and challenges, is spread across many stakeholders across the globe. To improve the integration of volunteerism in the 2030 Agenda, policy makers and development practitioners need specific types of knowledge to improve policy and practice. The goal of the UNV Knowledge Portal is to consolidate and make volunteering data accessible to inform policy and advocacy. It matches those who collect data and those who make policy. The portal covers different areas of evidence across three sections: