UNV coordinates IVD on 5 December annually to recognize and promote the tireless work, not just of UN Volunteers, but of volunteers across the globe. Rising inequalities throughout the world implore that we need to work together to find common solutions. Volunteers, drawn together by solidarity, develop solutions to urgent development challenges and for the common good.

At 25 years of age, I was a teacher in Australia, yearning to experience something new. Out of the blue, I was offered an opportunity to teach at a missionary school in central Liberia. I remember going to a nearby library to check where Liberia was in the atlas!

Why volunteer online? Through Online Volunteering, you can contribute your skills and expertise towards achieving sustainable human development efforts of organizations around the world.

"My father and his family were forcefully displaced from Palestine to Jordan in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. My mother and maternal family fled from Palestine to Jordan during the Six Day War in 1967, this has inspired me to pursue a humanitarian career in service of refugees in particular," she says.

In times of crisis, volunteers are among the first to take critical action at the frontlines. Under the UNV-UNDP Tandem Teams, national and international volunteers are supporting UNDP country offices in responding not just to the pandemic, but also natural hazards and human-induced crises.  

Madame President, Distinguished delegates, Madame Associate Administrator, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Women's rights have been on the agenda of the whole UN system and its agencies over many years. Emanating from its triple mandate, UN Women has several key aims for their projects, focusing on empowering women, increasing women's political involvement, mainstreaming gender in national processes, greater economic security for women and ending gender-based violence. 

Following through on a commitment to empower youth to carry out field research and data analysis, five young and emerging researchers recruited as National UN Volunteers worked with a senior researcher/Team Leader to conduct field research in four case study locations – Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Kyrgyzstan, and the Western Balkans, with UN Volunteers based in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo (as per UN Security Council resolution 1244).