Atsushi is from Chiba city in Japan and started his UN Volunteer assignment with UNDP on 7 December 2024. He is based in Djibouti, where he will support agricultural businesses and food security till almost the end of 2025. The project is funded through the Japanese Supplementary Budget and titled, 'Support to UN response to water and food insecurity caused by climate change and drought in Sub-Saharan Africa through the deployment of Japanese Specialists as UN Volunteers.'

As a young African at 20, I see the hurdles we face—climate change disrupting agriculture, limited resources affecting education, and political instability creating uncertainty. Yet, these challenges ignite innovation. I see it in the way my peers use technology to drive social change and transform agriculture. My work with Kilimo Green Farm revealed the resilience of Congolese farmers, who, against all odds, adapt to climate change with sustainable practices. 

As Data Entry Assistant, Reem’s role involves managing grievances under the Emergency Social Safety Net program. She diligently addresses beneficiary grievances and ensures timely resolutions. “I work with various types of data related to grievances, cash assistance distributions, and beneficiary feedback. This data is used to identify trends, monitor program effectiveness, and inform decision-making processes,” notes Reem.

As a Resilience & Emergency Preparedness Program Associate, Wafa has been a driving force behind resilience-building efforts, helping at-risk communities prepare for and adapt to future challenges. “I have provided technical support and assisted in the development of various activities and processes of adaptation fund project submission, including emergency preparedness and response, resilience, and climate change adaptation, ensuring alignment with wider Program policies and guidelines,” she explained.

Tetiana Mykytenko serves with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Czechia. She wanted to do something positive even as things looked bleak in her home country, Ukraine. She sought refugee in Czechia and that's when she joined UNHCR as a UN Volunteer Refugee Community-Based Protection Assistant. 

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.

The project, Empowerment of Urban Women from Low-Income Families through Home Gardening to Ensure Food Security and Nutrition, was implemented in Sri Lanka from October 2022 to February 2023. It covered 12 communities with women and youth as key beneficiaries, and centered on emergency response to the socio-economic crisis in the the country. In recent years, the interest in home gardens has increased. This strategy to household food security especially helps the urban low-income communities.

My name is David Ouma and I am a national UN Volunteer Specialist. I serve as Project Management Assistant at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi.  My academic background in Biology and my six-month internship in marine conservation at the Kenyan coast led to this UN Volunteer assignment. 

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.

Across the globe, there is an increasing trend in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 years. According to estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 340 million or almost 18 per cent of this age group were overweight or obese in 2016, compared to four per cent in 1975.