In today’s work culture, workload has increased tenfold and organizations facing workforce shortages and complexity of business processes feel pressure to improve. Will UNV be able to achieve greater productivity with the use of software robotics, as staff increasingly get nervous about automation? In 2020, UNV fielded 7,639 onsite UN Volunteers in 2020, administering thousands of new recruitments and contract renewals over the course of the year.

Dina is one of seven people selected for international volunteering in the framework of an agreement between the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme and Kazakhstan. Knowledgeable young expert that she is, Dina is quickly adjusting to the UN environment and gaining sound experience in the field of international politics. Born and raised in Kazakhstan, the now 26-year-old volunteer serves at the UNDP office in Istanbul.

Digital readiness is key to our success. i.e. building and refining of capabilities and culture to perform and transform. According to the Institute for Digital Transformation, "The more prepared or ready an organization, the more likely it will achieve its desired outcome. 'Digital readiness' is being prepared for the disruption of Digital Transformation." 

From the onset, the pandemic disrupted how we bring volunteers to the UN. Travel lockdowns made international recruitments almost impossible. At the same time, the need for volunteers in the UN system increased. In a matter of a few weeks, UNV’s job changed and we had to brainstorm:

The Government of Germany is a long-standing key partner of UNV, and regular partner consultations take place with the two lead ministries in Bonn and Berlin, and with the German mission to the UN in New York, to assess and advance this multi-faceted partnership: the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Federal Foreign Office. The focus of the recent dialogue was on the current collaboration as well as broader issues related to the UN in Germa

2020 is the year when UNV moved towards strong financial BI capabilities, which has facilitated delivering an exhaustive, accessible and accurate financial picture of the organization and set the baseline for stronger financial monitoring and forecasting. We are proud that UNV has invested into BI and that through our digital transformation project we are transforming how UNV is using data and statistics for all critical domains. --Frederic Le Maistre, Chief, ICT Unit at UNV

UNV’s new Unified Volunteering Platform will replace several older volunteer recruitment and management applications. While UVP users will enjoy a number of major policy, process and system improvements, one innovation we are working on is the strategic utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

In the area of partnership management, previously, our UNV personnel could not rely on a global support system for outreach and intelligence. Thus far, colleagues stored contact details and partner information in Word and Excel files aross the organization. The main avenue for information exchange between different sections and regional offices was e-mail. Through the introduction of our new client relationship management platform, we have changed this.

The new Service Desk consolidates enquiry input channels, including web and email queries, and leverages AI and self-service technologies such as chatbots, to give around-the-clock service to UN partners and those who manage UN Volunteers. External visitors are serviced in three UNV languages – English, French and Spanish, including on the AI interface.

UNV is modifying its systems to make becoming a UN Volunteer and recruiting a UN Volunteer both intuitive and digital savvy. The organization-wide DT project, which is supported by the Government of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), leads to new organizational capabilities, augmented by frontier technologies such as AI, Big Data and cloud computing. With efficiency gains and real-time engagement with candidates and UN host entities alike, UNV will better respond to the most pressing needs of the UN and its Member States.