The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is pleased to launch the new Unified Volunteering Platform (UVP) and Unified Conditions of Service (UCOS). These two key milestones of UNV’s ongoing digital transformation reflect the organization’s commitment to streamline the engagement of dedicated volunteer talent to effectively support UN partners in delivering on the 2030 agenda.
The AI-powered, cloud based Unified Volunteer Platform fundamentally transforms the way UNV’s partners communicate and connect. Part of the ongoing digital transformation, it has been designed to facilitate all elements of UN Volunteer and Online Volunteer mobilization, recruitment and management.
In a significant step forward, it will be the single-entry point for all UNV partners – from candidates and onsite and online volunteers to donors, funding partners and UNV personnel and online volunteers partner organizations. The UVP brings efficiency gains that will positively impact the UN Volunteer experience, as well as the work of partner organizations.
The platform contains important features to facilitate the administration of UN Volunteer assignments. Partners will be able to recruit and manage onsite and online volunteers in one place. Users will also be able to request direct recruitment, extensions and re-assignment, among other things, while all tasks requiring attention are captured in one dashboard.
For troubleshooting, the UVP also contains embedded online guidance tools and is supported by UNV’s AI Chatbot, Voli, which can also log service tickets for escalation to UNV personnel.
Over the coming months, UNV will be running run practical training sessions for UN partners, covering important topics such as how to request volunteers by creating a description of assignment, track recruitments, evaluate candidates and confirm assignment durations.
The Unified Volunteering Platform and Unified Conditions of Service deliver a massive leap in policy innovation and business processes simplification and efficiencies for our UN and funding partners, UN Volunteers, candidates and UNV staff. They are a reflection of UNV’s commitment to better serve UN partners, and leverage digital tools and frontier technologies to help deliver the 2030 agenda. --Olga Zubritskaya-Devyatkina, Chief, Volunteer Solutions Section
To coincide with the UVP and following a thorough consultation and review process, UNV has also launched Unified Conditions of Service.
These align volunteer entitlements across all assignment categories and include 18 main changes. UN partners were consulted via the UN Human Resources network and a detailed analysis of all entitlement components.
Why new and unified Conditions of Service? The delivery of the new Conditions of Service achieves two major objectives: firstly, to streamline the administration of volunteers, with minimal changes to the proforma costs and entitlement packages, and, secondly, to strengthen equity across UN Volunteer entitlements.
An updated and workable instrument, the revised policy not only responds to the changing needs of volunteers, but also ensures UNV remains an attractive, cost-effective source of talent for UN partners.
We are grateful to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for its support to UNV’s Digital Transformation project, which has enabled our innovative pathway.