The CDR Awards recognize innovation in the day-to-day work of human resources practitioners from the international public sector in the fields of recruitment and employee engagement. With support from public and private sector organisations, the CDR Awards provide the opportunity to showcase, share and learn from the collective experience in successfully addressing strategic or operational challenges, as well as recognize the potential of creativity and the people behind it. What issue did we set out to address?

The CDR Awards recognize innovation in the day-to-day work of human resources practitioners from the international public sector in the fields of recruitment and employee engagement. With support from public and private sector organisations, the CDR Awards provide the opportunity to showcase, share and learn from the collective experience in successfully addressing strategic or operational challenges, as well as recognize the potential of creativity and the people behind it. What issue did we set out to address?

Roma belong to the largest ethnic minority in Serbia and are still among the most deprived communities, often facing discrimination, social exclusion and unequal access to employment, education, housing and health services. The 2017 Regional Survey on socio-economic position of vulnerable Roma in the Western Balkans, commissioned by UNDP, showed that the biggest challenges for social inclusion of Roma in Serbia are their high unemployment and inactivity rates. While the education aspect has improved for Roma, it is not resulting in their employment.

In total, around 206 UN Volunteer teachers were deployed over the course of 3 school years, to provide quality, inclusive and equitable education services to both 31,231 Palestinian refugee children already living in Lebanon and 5,318 Palestinian refugee children who newly arrived from Syria. The support of UN Volunteer teachers was extended to UNRWA schools for the academic years 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.

Education is one of six themes at the centre of the GRF, critical to the support of refugees and the countries that host them. The Spotlight Session focused on tertiary education for refugees, through a conversation about how barriers are being overcome, how interventions are improving the quality or expanding the quantity of opportunities available, and ultimately, how higher education pathways can support self-reliance and solutions for refugees.

The UNHCR-UNV DAFI Initiative seeks to expand the success of the DAFI programme by addressing the difficulties that graduated refugees face when trying to enter the job market. The Initiative constitutes an opportunity for the DAFI graduates to gain professional experience as UN Volunteers in the UN System, where they can contribute with their unique background and perspectives to help achieving the SDGs.

The project consisted of recruiting refugees from the camp and members from the host communities as Refugee Outreach Volunteers. Additionally, UNV used its refugee-to-refugee volunteer modality to recruit and deploy one refugee identified in the camp as a UN Volunteer. The Refugee Outreach Volunteers served with UNHCR and were provided with the necessary capacities, knowledge and resources to contribute to addressing their own protection needs.  

The IVD 2019 theme, "Volunteer for an Inclusive Future", is a reminder that volunteerism strengthens solidarity and inclusiveness and provides the opportunity for all to participate in the improvement of their communities. In his welcome speech, Prof. Dr. Vimane Phoummavong, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, highlighted the importance of the theme, and Alberto Cuomo, UNV Programme Officer in Lao PDR, reiterated that volunteerism is a universally accessible powerful equalizer that can reduce inequalities worldwide.

From 19 to 20 November 2019, stakeholders from volunteer-involving organizations, civil society, academia, governments and United Nations entities met in Ouagadougou, to discuss how volunteerism can contribute to peace and development in the Sahel region. The roundtable was initiated by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, in collaboration with the African Institute for Economic Development and Planification (IDEP) and the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF), to produce evidence of the impact of volunteerism in the Sahel.