By Simone Galimberti
International Volunteer Day, commonly known as IVD, is celebrated on 5 December every year. It started as an international observance mandated by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985. It is a day where volunteers are acknowledged, and the spirit of volunteerism is promoted at the local, national and international levels. United Nations Volunteers joins IVD celebrations with UN Volunteers and all volunteers around the world—amplifying the importance of people-led solutions to our common challenges.
KATHMANDU, Nepal | 5 December 2024 (IDN) — According to the 2022 State of the World’s Volunteering Report, there were 862.4 million people aged 15 and above volunteering monthly.
The good news from this UNV flagship publication was that most of them were based in Asia, a region that contributed with almost 564 million volunteers.
The fact that volunteerism thrives in places where there is a strong local culture of reciprocity and self-help is worth reflecting on. Local practices driven by universal values like solidarity and altruism, engines of what we are now, generally and somehow simplistically defined as volunteering, could represent one of the best ways to further boost civic engagement.
Amid multiple challenges affecting our societies, from inequalities to threats from climate warming and biodiversity loss to erosion of our democratic space, volunteering remains an untapped resource to resuscitate people’s participation in public life.
Finding ways to scale and support local initiatives while building a stronger case to have Volunteering at the centre of policymaking remains challenging.
The annual volunteerism is focused on the Report of the UN Secretary General published at the end of September. Volunteering for The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers a clear review of the three top priorities to reinvigorate volunteering.
First, the report explains it is paramount to integrate volunteering into national development plans. Second, we must build inclusive partnerships across local communities to tackle the most pressing challenges. Third, strengthening data collection and its analysis to determine the potential and impact of volunteering better is equally crucial.
Finally, some positive developments are emerging. The following State of the World’s Volunteering Report, due in 2025, will lay the ground for the mammoth task of creating the pillars for the first-ever Global Volunteering Index.
Online conversation
UNV, in 2024, had started an online conversation, a brainstorming exercise, on how this complex and daunting initiative could unfold and which dimensions linked to volunteering should be captured.
UNV is playing a key role in developing what will become a groundbreaking tool that will help governments and corporations alike better realize the endless positive power brought in by volunteers from all walks of life.
This new understanding, to be scientifically backed up by a rigorous academic undertaking, could finally help unleash the vastly unexplored potential of volunteering. However, while driven by the expertise of top researchers at the Center for Global Development at Cumbria University and the University of Johannesburg, the whole preparation process should be as inclusive as possible.
A community of Practitioners, in the physical and virtual settings, could support the whole undertaking, offering inputs and insights. This sort of “open-source” approach could dramatically improve the key cornerstones of the upcoming Index.
UNV could not only reopen the semi-informal virtual space within its online Knowledge Platform to discuss this further, but I am confident this will happen. But it could also officially create an enlarged Regional or even Global Boards of Practitioners who could provide guidance and expertise on formulating the Index.
But coming up with this ambitious tool is just an aim towards something bigger, rather than the end goal itself. Suppose more than 800 million people selflessly dedicate their time, energies and skills to the common good. In that case, we should do a much better job recognizing and giving visibility to them.
We could also increase their numbers.
It is here where UNV, in partnership with IAVE and the International Forum on Volunteering in Development, i.e. The Forum, should restart that conversation that, back in July 2020, had culminated in a Global Technical Meeting.
It was an open, transparent process co-led by UNV and the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and had come up with an ambitious call to action. A huge opportunity was missed in not following up on its implementation.
Road map
Some of the ideas proposed were bold and could have helped generate new interest in volunteerism, but they are still so often misunderstood and largely taken for granted.
The road map proposed in the Call-to-Action should be dusted off, and the so-called Global Synthesis Report, the main report summarizing the whole process, still constitutes a fundamental template to be pursued.
Having better data and having a new tool that captures and measures the transformations, both at the community and personal level, that volunteering cannot make a decisive mark.
But, alone, this endeavour, as mighty as it will be, won’t be enough. We need to rethink how volunteerism can be better embedded in society radically. We need to fundamentally rebrand it, making it easier and much more accessible, especially by doing a much better job of engaging the youth and marginalized groups.
Here, partnerships are key because we need to undertake an immense exercise in imagination and creativity to make volunteering an essential part of our lives truly.
Big philanthropy foundations, multinationals, and small groups made up of members of civil society have a huge responsibility and role to play.
UNV spends a lot of energy as a sort of “manpower” agency of the UN system, offering thousands of people an entry point to the UN.
I have always been uncomfortable with such a strong focus, even if I understand the importance of involving and engaging young people in the UN. That’s why the SG’s Report misses the whole point.
It is essential to analyze how many nations integrate volunteering in their national development plans, highlighting good practices from Chile, Zambia, India and Turkiye. It is also undoubtedly key to underscore how volunteerism has been included in the SDGs-centered Voluntary National Reviews.
While there are some improvements, the fact that many nations still ignore or neglect volunteering in their plans is symptomatic of a more significant problem.
When policymakers or UN officials talk or write about the so-called “whole of society” approach to deal with the challenges of, for example, climate warming, they do not get what volunteerism is: the powerful glue to keep our societies united and cohesive.
Do we still need to do an abysmal job leveraging volunteering to deliver and implement the SDGs locally?
As International Volunteer Day is celebrated worldwide today, with a theme focused on harnessing volunteering for the SDGs, we still have a long way to unleash its potential truly.
UNV, despite its limitations and working modalities that, unfortunately, model the whole UN system, remains a force for good. 2026 could offer a new opportunity as it will be the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development.
We genuinely need a whole of society approach to save our planet and our community. We better return to bold, unconventional ideas to boost volunteerism.
The world desperately needs citizens not tuned out but tuned in so that they are encouraged to lead a new renaissance of civic life.
The year 2026 could represent the beginning of a new era focused on people’s engagement and participation.
Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centred policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Image credit: UN Volunteers
