POLICY CHALLENGE WITH VOLUNTEER INVOLVING ORGANIZATIONS 

POLICY CHALLENGE WITH CIVIL SOCIETY

In El Edén, a Mam indigenous community in the northeastern part of Guatemala, residents cut down hundreds of trees each year for their domestic energy needs. “We collect firewood in the dry season for the whole year. We look for wood which is completely dry, because it will burn for longer and we use less wood”, comments Celedonia Félix Matías, President of the organization Eucalyptus.

The ILO Department of Statistics and the UN Volunteers have joined forces to scale up efforts to improve the global availability, quality and use of statistics on volunteer work. Starting this month, the ILO-UNV partnership will focus on assessing the current status of volunteer work statistics around the world; engage directly with countries to identify good practices and challenges in volunteer work data collection and analysis; and develop practical survey approaches and tools to support countries’ efforts.

The State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR) looks at the distinctive role of volunteerism in strengthening community resilience, and the enabling environment that can help maximise the contribution of volunteers around the world to risk reduction efforts. As part of the report development process, qualitative field research was carried out in 15 communities globally to understand what communities saw as the distinctive contribution of volunteerism to resilience, and the environmental factors that influenced the impact of volunteer work.

The online space features original research, new insights, and opportunities to collaborate in the lead up to the 2018 launch of State of the World's Volunteerism Report. It pulls together a picture of what is happening in the world in terms of volunteering and brings together the voices of key players in peace and development efforts.  What are the latest trends in volunteering? What is the contribution of the work that volunteers around the world are doing? What do experts, government officials, volunteers have to say about taking volunteerism forward?

The online space features original research, new insights, and opportunities to collaborate in the lead up to the 2018 launch of State of the World's Volunteerism Report. It pulls together a picture of what is happening in the world in terms of volunteering and brings together the voices of key players in peace and development efforts.  What are the latest trends in volunteering? What is the contribution of the work that volunteers around the world are doing? What do experts, government officials, volunteers have to say about taking volunteerism forward?

On September 19, 2017, Mexico was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that toppled buildings in Mexico City and four surrounding states.  Only two hours earlier, I had left my meeting in a high-rise building to participate in the annual drill to commemorate the 1985 earthquake which struck on the same date 32 years ago.  As part of the exercise, schools and office buildings were evacuated. Some people considered the simulation useful when the real thing hit.

The purpose of the paper was to: Identify, review and compare existing data on formal and informal voluntary activity at national level, paying specific attention to the results from key international surveys; Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of available data sources on volunteering worldwide; Discuss volunteerism measurements issues and suggest accurate and valid volunteerism indices for

The purpose of this literature review is to set out a conceptual framework to inform the primary research methodology and protocol for 2018 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, and to identify gaps that can be filled through primary research with communities. This review is based on analysis of different publications that touch on volunteerism and resilience, providing a synthesis of prior studies in order to inform the final report.