The people of South Sudan deserve to enjoy life, deserve to have food, water, electricity, education and a prosperous future for their children. This is the spirit of volunteerism for me – volunteering to make people’s lives better. --Ia Saakadze, UN Volunteer Air Operations Assistant

UNV has developed a successful partnership with the UNODC Regional Office for West and Central Africa based in Dakar, especially in the mobilization of youth volunteers.  Over the course of three years, 21 UN Volunteers and UN Youth Volunteers have supported UNODC in Senegal in the fight against illicit drugs and transnational organized crime in the region. They especially contribute in the cross-cutting areas such as programme management, communications and monitoring & evaluation.

The UNDP-UNV Talent Programme will offer young people with disabilities the opportunity to acquire practical work experience and exposure to the work of the UN Development System through assignments with country, regional or headquarters offices of UNDP and other UN entities. UNDP-UNV will identify relevant assignments and select applicants. Programme participants and host offices will benefit from dedicated support, guidance and professional development opportunities as part of the programme.

Two years ago, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development shaped a roadmap to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, therefore recognizing the intrinsic link between peace and sustainable development.

They came to share their experiences, learn from each other and build a network of colleagues and friends to help them overcome the many difficulties they face in challenging contexts like Mali, the Democratic Republic of thr Congo, Liberia and elsewhere.

The community radio project helps improve access to information and public services for marginalized rural communities. The radio stations are entirely run by volunteers from the communities, a diverse bunch of inspired, mostly young people, eager to learn and contribute their time and energy. They know the communities, people and various ethnic languages.

My daily work is very busy and captivating. I promote UNDP and the United Nations system projects and work with national and international partners to support our actions and ensure the visibility of our results. I help coordinate the communication activities of UN agencies in the country along with other UN communication officers. I meet regularly beneficiaries of UNDP, especially  young people, in order to conduct interviews or reports. I have found myself passionate about communicating about the SDGs and I regularly train local NGOs on this topic.

Some 14 female and 24 male young Guinean UN Volunteers have been deployed in the 33 prefectures of the country to provide technical and administrative support to the members of the Independent Prefectural Electoral Commission and the Independent Communal Electoral Commission for the next six months to achieve a peaceful and consensual election that is scheduled to take place on 4 February 2018.

Some 14 female and 24 male young Guinean UN Volunteers have been deployed in the 33 prefectures of the country to provide technical and administrative support to the members of the Independent Prefectural Electoral Commission and the Independent Communal Electoral Commission for the next six months to achieve a peaceful and consensual election that is scheduled to take place on 4 February 2018.

UN Women and UN Volunteers launched a community-focused radio project in Quetta, Pakistan, in 2017. The aim of this project was to empower women through community focused-radio and volunteerism. It engaged marginalized women and youth in two towns, and established establish community-based radio programmes for entertainment, information and education purposes.