On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the UN pays homage to the victims of hunger and social exclusion to encourage multilateral partnerships that are based on solid, compassionate responses to their struggles. Poverty has numerous repercussions: hunger and food insecurity, increased crime and child mortality rates, political instability, corruption and dysfunctional governance. We are seeing now that poverty is a prime driver of violent extremism, breeding and intensifying conflicts worldwide.

Their mission is simple, their rationale concise: "We are lifeguards and we are saving lives." Started in September 2015, the small Barcelona-based NGO Proactiva Open Arms initially helped refugees "disembark safely" onto the island of Lesbos, Greece. This year, the organization, which depends entirely on donations, has expanded its humanitarian operation to patrolling the coast off Libya.

On the 15th of August 2017, the Aquarius took on board 112 people rescued by the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), another NGO working in the Mediterranean. These 112 people were packed on a single inflatable boat, as Alessandro Porro recalls. Among them were women, children and wounded people, but for the most part they were young men.

During a field monitoring mission as a UN Volunteer Associate Project Officer with UN Women in Tajikistan, I got to know the female leaders of two dairies which, independently from each other, approached me with their idea to produce a hard cheese as a more durable dairy product.

The purpose of this literature review is to set out a conceptual framework to inform the primary research methodology and protocol for 2018 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, and to identify gaps that can be filled through primary research with communities. This review is based on analysis of different publications that touch on volunteerism and resilience, providing a synthesis of prior studies in order to inform the final report.

Helena Pes (Italy) is an international UN Volunteer serving in the Mbera camp, Mauritania, with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "The situation in northern Mali remains unstable and in these conditions, influx of refugees is unpredictable," she explains. Since 2012, several populations fled from Northern Mali due to conflict and the fear of oppression. Most of the more than 51,000 refugees in the camp are Touareg, co-habiting with Arab, Fula, and Songhai refugees.

Au Burkina Faso, depuis 2006, un corps national de volontaires a été mis en place par le gouvernment avec l'appui de quelques partenaires des Nations Unies.

Nadeen participates today in the side event "Harnessing the Power of Volunteering to Achieve the 2030 Agenda" organized by the International Forum for Volunteering in Development (Forum) in New York, in the framework of the High-Level Political Forum for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNV: What do you see as the intrinsic values volunteerism can bring to the human development agenda? Selim Jahan: Firstly, volunteerism is undoubtedly helping the human development agenda. Volunteers are working in areas such as education, health, water and sanitation, improving living conditions and, in a nutshell, providing people with all kinds of support. Volunteerism enhances human development, everywhere.

UNV: What do you see as the intrinsic values volunteerism can bring to the human development agenda? Selim Jahan: Firstly, volunteerism is undoubtedly helping the human development agenda. Volunteers are working in areas such as education, health, water and sanitation, improving living conditions and, in a nutshell, providing people with all kinds of support. Volunteerism enhances human development, everywhere.