I began my UN Volunteer assignment in December 2020, when we were facing the challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic in numerous ways. Many were experiencing physical and mental challenges, yet there was not much space to discuss these.

Mme/Mr Chairman, Excellencies, Distinguished delegates,

Martin and a team of Online Volunteers working on the project are excited to help Ukrainian pioneers uncover biomimetic solutions to their problems. They are part of the national Biomimicry Challenge* organized by UNDP's Accelerator Lab project, with the assistance of the Biomimicry Institute. This all-Ukrainian competition seeks to find ideas inspired by natural systems.

As part of the next State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, UNV commissioned a study based on original multi-country quantitative data to understand patterns of volunteer participation during the global COVID-19 pandemic, volunteer motivations and experiences, and what these might mean for people’s voluntary participation.

​Even before the pandemic, millions of people took to the streets to make their voices heard. Rising inequalities were a common factor for these public displays, and minorities such as persons with disabilities, indigenous communities, refugees, and migrants, among others, were the hardest hit groups.

Even before the pandemic, millions of people took to the streets to make their voices heard.

Today, we live in a world without borders: we are currently experiencing a global pandemic which does not follow borders; international terrorism does not follow borders; climate change does not follow borders. To address these borderless problems, you must have citizens across the world who are equally borderless and conscious about supporting the planet. I believe this is where volunteering plays a significant role and that we must invest in a future for these responsible citizens.

Volunteers and Volunteerism

The event was arranged within the new innovative partnership between the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, UN Development Programme (UNDP), Beijing Volunteer Service Federation (BVF) and China International Centre for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE) "Promoting Sustainable Urban Development through Volunteer Service for the Beijing Winter Olympics". The main goal of the partnership is to accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the establishmen

From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, the Mano River Basin sub-region of West Africa was torn by civil wars that started in Liberia, and soon spread to neighboring countries. With all of West Africa under the threat of destabilization, the UN Security Council deployed six peacekeeping operations across the region from 1993 to 2018, to help build peace and protect local populations.