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UN Volunteers Policy Paper ‘Caring Cities’ Volunteering in Urban Development and the role of the United Nations Volunteer Programme PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME Page 26 Page 27 1. Introduction to UNV Set up as a UN subsidiary organ in 1970, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme is administered under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Its headquarters was moved from Geneva to Bonn in 1996. UNV’s urban agenda is built upon this agency’s overall framework of action, outlined above. That will be elaborated after a brief discussion on the general context of international assistance to urban development. UNV’s framework of action can be divided into two broad components: (i) promotion and support of the different types of volunteerism, and (ii) mobilization of UN Volunteers. In practice these two components are often – although not always – linked together. For the sake of better understanding, each component will be outlined separately. The promotion and support activities of UNV target all four types of volunteerism analysed in the first part of this paper (self-help, service to others, participation and advocacy). In many circumstances and places, local volunteers – be they institutions or individuals – have problems of their own. They may not be able to provide alone the volunteer response necessary for a given development problem. In such cases, UNV complements the local response and also builds local volunteer capacity, securing sustainability. In its turn, the mobilization of UN Volunteers fits within the volunteerism category of ‘service to others’. The UN Volunteers are professionals who work in support of a wide range of development initiatives of governments, civil society organizations, private sector and international organizations. They are recruited on the basis of specific needs and post descriptions in the light of the blend of qualifications, skills and experience sought. UNV has a set of characteristics, which distinguishes it from other development actors (whether international or local). The role of a UN Volunteer in a given development project is different from that of a local volunteer. The UN Volunteer is able to tap immediately into the informational and technical apparatus of the UN system and to bring fresh and quick responses to emerging problems in the field. Furthermore, the neutrality of UNV helps in reducing the vulnerability level of a programme to internal political pressures, and in mediating between local stakeholders in a given project.
UN Volunteers Policy Paper ‘Caring Cities’ Volunteering in Urban Development and the role of the United Nations Volunteer Programme PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME The international response to the urban problems of developing countries and UNV’s role Page 28 2. The international response to the urban problems of 2. developing countries and UNV’s role The importance of volunteerism in urban development, highlighted in the first part of this paper, has been recognized by many international agencies. Such agencies have offered promotion and support to volunteerism in specific sectors within their respective frameworks of action. For instance, WHO has supported volunteer contributions to improve urban health; UNICEF has supported similar contributions in fields of action related to children living in cities, UNESCO has done the same in the field of cultural heritage, etc. UNV’s framework of action, in its turn, includes volunteerism in general, that is, cutting across the various sectors of urban development. This has an important added-value, considering that urban development is by definition multisectoral. UNV has been catalysing the synergies and complementarity between the volunteer contributions in the different sectors of the development of a given city or town. UNV has also promoted and supported volunteer co-operation between different cities and towns. UNV also provides an added-value through the specific work of the UN Volunteers. By and large, the international agencies have responded to the urban problems of developing countries through macro-level initiatives. For example, there are many international initiatives of support for local/urban activities such as awareness-raising campaigns, processes of partnership building among the different urban stakeholders, and/or assistance to policy-making (see, for instance, Werna, 1996, 2000, for reviews). At any rate, in order to be effective and sustainable, urban development initiatives need to be solidly anchored with the local stakeholders. This process requires labour-intensive, in-depth, long-term work. This is where the forte of the UN Volunteers exists. Page 29 dation of the process with the stakeholders at the local level. However, the anchoring of development processes (especially those which are externally induced) at the local level is often not simple, and there are many examples of initiatives which have not fully succeeded. Therefore, UNV is well placed to secure the establishment of such initiatives, especially at the grassroots, through the extensive day-to-day, face-to-face, work of the UN Volunteers with the local stakeholders. In other cases, activities of international agencies do reach the local level, often via allied local organizations which operate in the field on a day-to-day long term basis. UNV also has a contribution to offer in such cases. Firstly, the work of the UN Volunteers in the field can help to expand the reach of international initiatives. In addition, the UN Volunteers can work with and within the very local organizations which are responsible for the implementation of these initiatives. Such organizations often face difficulties and have problems of their own, which UNV can help to address – e.g. through capacity building, technical assistance, institutional strengthening and other activities which again require the type of intervention that characterise the work of the UN Volunteers – e.g. labourintensive, in-depth, long-term work. Such interventions strengthen the implementation process through the local organizations. In some instances, the aforementioned urban actions of international agencies remain at the macro level (for example, workshops with city stakeholders, consultancy missions, fast campaigns to motivate local stakeholders to build synergies or/and to carry out specific tasks, etc.). It is expected that such short-term and intensive tasks would constitute the trigger or lay the necessary seeds for the replication and final consoli-
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