Giovana Urquizo and Luisa Luna Choque are among the nine UN Community Volunteers. Giovana is from Chuquisaca Department in the center south of Bolivia and Luisa is from La Paz, the third most populous city and the seat of the government of Bolivia.  

Prabesh's main task revolves around civil engineering and other technical support to disaster risk reduction and community development. He is responsible for the distribution of agricultural assets like water pumps, tractors and threshers in support of community-owned and led management systems.

Through a programmatic and financial collaboration, UNV supports the implementation of the Global ABS UNDP-GEF project "Strengthening human resources, legal frameworks, and institutional capacities to implement the Nagoya Protocol".

Through a programmatic and financial collaboration, UNV supports the implementation of the Global ABS UNDP-GEF project "Strengthening human resources, legal frameworks, and institutional capacities to implement the Nagoya Protocol".

After returning home from Cameroon in 2009, I accepted an assignment as an international UN Volunteer in Mauritius. Initially, I was tasked with the creation of a National Volunteer Programme based on a very attractive feasibility study. That study proved exceedingly optimistic but impossible to finance. I forged ahead and developed the programme in consultation with over 75 NGOs, government and private sectors and individuals.

In 2014, national authorities in CAR decided to establish a Special Criminal Court (SCC) to investigate and prosecute serious human rights violations, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. The law on the creation of the Court was promulgated on the 3 June 2015. It demonstrated strong political willingness to end impunity and the importance of equality, justice and freedom in achieving sustainable peace.  

I had decided on my career path in international development during my studies in Korea and Spain. What became apparent though was that I desired to work in the field, to be closer to the lives we aim to impact. I started searching.

In a crisis that killed 8,790 people and forced more than 700,000 into poverty, national UN Volunteers were mobilized to deliver critical assistance in affected sites in Nepal.

Since the ambitious group of young women and young men was brought together in June 2016, UNV and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are supporting the network of youth and volunteers by facilitating knowledge-sharing and assisting young leaders to engage in regional and national initiatives. Throughout the initiative, UNDP and UNV have organized capacity-building webinars, arranged opportunities for young leaders to share their opinions in multi-stakeholder conferences at regional and country-level, and collaborated in online and offline activities. 

The main causes of forest and land degradation in the country include deforestation, inappropriate agricultural practices, forest fires, over-grazing and demographic pressures. A survey conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) reported that the annual deforestation rate between 2003 and 2010 had been 1.73 per cent. If this alarming trend were to persist, 17.3 per cent of the forest in the country would disappear by 2021 and all forests in Timor-Leste by 2071.