To mark International Youth Day, India launches with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) its first national online volunteering platform, a first of its kind in India and for UNV. The platform serves as a marketplace for non-profit organizations and volunteers to connect, allowing youth networks, volunteer involving organizations, civil society organizations, public institutions and State governments to get support from online volunteers completely free of charge.

I served as a national UN Volunteer in Sri Lanka. During this time, something I found most interesting was the opportunity to work with volunteers who are diverse in every possible way; be it gender, ethnicity, language or religion.

The report includes examples of how empowered Cambodian youth make a difference in their communities. It presents volunteering models that helped Cambodia recover from the decades of war and contributed to the country’s development, some of which can be replicated across the world. According to the results presented in the report, volunteer programmes in Cambodia have made a difference in reducing poverty, eradicating illiteracy, improving health, promoting gender equality, and protecting human rights and the environment.

Andrea Marilyn Pragashini Immanuel: “Refugees bring with them their culture, traditions, history and a truckload of experience. They strive through unimaginable hardship, incomprehensible misery and through it all find the strength to smile. They have taught me perseverance, to never give up hope even when everything fails and to strive hard. They have taught me to appreciate life, peace and prosperity.

In Mongolia, agriculture employs 35 per cent of the total labour force and, more importantly, it accounts for over 70 per cent of employment in rural areas. The livestock sub-sector accounts for almost 10 per cent of export earnings and approximately 80 per cent of total agricultural production. The agriculture and food sectors offer the best opportunity to grow inclusive employment (Ministry of Labour, 2014). There is a clear need to match the agro-industry’s increasing demand for a skilled ‘employable’ workforce with ‘decent work’ opportunities.

I am currently serving as an international UN Youth Volunteer in Agricultural Economics with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Hanoi, Viet Nam. I’m one of the six UN Youth Volunteers fully funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic in 2017.

As many as 68 per cent of women and girls aged 15-49 in Asia and the Pacific face some form of violence in their lifetime. This is one of the highest levels reported in the world.

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has been supporting implementation of the United Nations Plan of Action on Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience in South and East Asia and the Pacific since 2014.

In 2013, UNV, the Government of India, and UNDP launched a flagship initiative to provide help young people to reach their full social, economic and human potential, while instilling a strong sense of civic engagement facilitating greater youth participation in achieving sustainable development goals.

People around the world are facing an interconnected array of social, environmental and economic barriers to sustainable development. In this landscape, solutions for economic and human development require collaborative efforts by multiple sectors of society such as the private sector — a key player in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). When knowledge, technical expertise and innovative practices are applied to community investment, aligning economic development with human development, everybody wins.