The first regional Report of its kind – VCARE showcases the evolution of volunteering practices and the impact of volunteer efforts, emphasizes the value of volunteers' contributions, and identifies best practices in the region's volunteer movement. The Report’s findings offer diverse examples of volunteer actions that can help to fast track the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the region's five countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. 

Bhone's family was among some 1.9 million people affected by Cyclone Mocha. His house was destroyed. But he stood at the fore supporting recovery efforts as part of UNDP’s rapid response and early recovery initiative.

For Zambians, food insecurity is an urgent issue. Around 18 per cent of the country’s rural population require urgent action to protect their livelihoods. A further 15 per cent are only marginally able to meet their food needs, while three per cent of the country’s 17.8m people are already facing considerable food gaps.

A group of 40 UN Volunteers belonging to local communities was deployed by WFP in Iraq’s Duhok Governorate, which is located in the Kurdistan Region. In line with the Public Distribution System reform agenda, this group served alongside field enumerators to register Duhok residents. Serving tirelessly for three months, volunteers supported the registration of the newly issued PDS cards and also updated the residents' demographic information in the system - between 50 to 100 family registrations were carried out daily. Volunteers did so by using digital tablets.

As soon as I landed at the airport, loud French voices reminded me of how not francophone Burundi is, because Kirundi, our national language, does most of the work. I was at first nervous, for I hadn’t really used the language since high school. But as soon as I settled in, French eased its way back in during my conversations with colleagues, neighbors, and taxi drivers. The latter would always greet me with a "Tu es gabonaise?" (Are you Gabonese) full of suspicion, and I would wonder how striking it was that I was not from here.

WFP supported the government as it mobilized to provide immediate food assistance to families in the areas hit worst by the flooding. UN Volunteers were an integral part of the WFP team.

The Great Green Wall of the Sahara and Sahel initiative is one of the most ambitious programmes to combat climate change and desertification and fight food insecurity and poverty on the African continent. Adopted by the African Union in 2007, the Great Green Wall initiative brings together more than 20 African countries, in addition to international organizations, research institutes, civil society and community-based organizations. 

In Lebanon and Gaza, high unemployment, soaring costs of living and limited social assistance at the national level have forced millions into poverty. Lebanese people, in particular, suffered financial and humanitarian setbacks following the explosion at the Port of Beirut in 2020.  With the Lebanese pound incurring a loss of more than 90 per cent of its value to the economic challenges that continue to limit any growth — the conflict in Ukraine adds more difficulties — the biggest of them all, a decrease in food imports.

When Esi took up her position as UN Volunteer Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, she immediately identified implementation bottlenecks as the main problem with FAO projects in the country. Prior to her arrival, projects required, on average, up to two or three no-cost extensions to complete deliverables. This was beyond the project timeline, which could take up to two years.

It is estimated that more than 1.32 of 6 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants are in Peru (