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).

Some of the recommendations include:

The event was held during the Ninth Asia-Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development, arranged by UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in late March 2022. Dignitaries from UN entities, government officials, diplomatic corps, development partners and volunteers from Europe and the CIS and Asia and the Pacific attended the event live. More than 1,500 participants joined virtually.

In order to create an account on UNV’s Unified Volunteering Platform (UVP), you must be at least 18 years old. Creating a full profile should take about 45 minutes. You can access your account at any time to add information and keep your profile up to date. Register now in our Global Talent Pool

The Fellowship Programme provides an opportunity to bring 18 young professionals into UNFPA, with a dedicated focus on both providing a youth perspective and driving innovation in UNFPA’s priority areas. This includes addressing unmet needs for family planning, stopping preventable maternal deaths and ending violence against women and girls.

Millions of women, men, girls and boys around the world actively volunteer, using their time and efforts to help others. Since volunteering is done by, and between people, there are differences in the way women and men participate in volunteering activities. These differences include, for example, the amount of time women and men spend volunteering, the institutional context (formal vs.

Landscape Restoration Project  Júlia Baena de Mesquita is an Environmental and Social Analyst with the World Bank in Burundi. She ensures that the World Bank’s social safeguards are applied to all the projects. By doing so, she guarantees that development is not done at any cost. This ranges from issues that stem from labour conditions to gender-based violence, and communities’ health and safety. 

I have always been interested in women's rights, gender equality and volunteerism. My first volunteer experience goes back to my undergraduate days when I joined the university's official volunteer programme, Ugnayan ng Pahinungod, which nurtures volunteers working with the Philippines' local communities. I also worked as an intern for the Huairou Commission in New York, which provided me with ample exposure to women's rights issues and an understanding of key global issues.