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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 PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME UNV’s niche in urban work Page 30 3. UNV’s niche in urban work Following UNV’s overall framework of action, and its specific role as partner in international assistance for urban development, its urban agenda can be divided into two broad components: (i) promotion and support to the different types of volunteerism, and (ii) the mobilization of UN Volunteers. 3.1. Promotion and support to volunteerism – Isolated initiatives: Each city or town comprises several volunteer organizations as well as individuals which contribute to the various sectors of its development. For example: grassroots (self-help) groups; solidarity groups with specific purposes, corporate volunteerism (e.g. private enterprises supporting communities), among others. UNV strives to strengthen existing initiatives, to support the creation of new ones in strategic areas, and to catalyse complementarity between them. – Collective attitudes and behaviours: volunteerism does not consist only of calculated and focused actions of organized groups (important as they are). Collective attitudes and behaviours such as the respect of human rights, the preservation of culture and of the environment largely depend upon voluntary actions. That is, they cannot be ‘bought and sold’ in the market place, rather they are fundamentally based on free will. Such collective attitudes and behaviours strengthen the social foundations of urban development, they therefore also have UNV’s support. – City-wide approach: UNV also promotes the establishment of mechanisms to put together in a systematic way all the volunteer activities in a given city or town. One way to do this is via the local government, the political authority which represents the city or town as a whole. Another way is the creation of a city-wide volunteer centre. – Inter-city volunteerism: this is important not only to support the development of poorer settlements, but also to create a broader sense of solidarity among people who live in different localities. UNV has promoted schemes of co-operation between local authorities, as well as inter-city corporate volunteerism. Page 31 – New forms of volunteerism: UNV also strives to keep abreast with innovations in the field of volunteerism. One recent example is corporate volunteerism, which challenges the traditional view that volunteerism happens only via civil society organizations. Another example is the use of information technology (on-line volunteering). Further forms of volunteering are also taking shape. One of the most interesting is service credit, or time-dollar schemes, in which people who take part in voluntary activity are ‘paid’ in time donated by other volunteers. Advocates for such schemes point to their value in building social capital and in challenging traditional stereotypes of volunteering as charity by the explicit emphasis on exchange and reciprocity. All these forms of volunteerism have a role to play in urban development. The aforementioned actions are carried out through different means. In some cases, they take place directly via support from UNV Headquarters and in others via UNV Programme Officers stationed in the field. Some examples of such actions are: building partnerships, linking donors and local volunteer groups, connecting two different groups which want to establish an alliance based on voluntary exchanges, disseminating information about volunteerism, conducting awareness raising campaigns, etc. In other cases, the activities included in this first component of UNV’s urban agenda are often linked to the second component (based on the work of the UN Volunteers). For example, UN Volunteers directly build the capacity of and provide technical assistance to volunteer organizations in the field. In such cases, the outputs are enhanced because such initiatives benefit from the increased synergy accruing from volunteer-to-volunteer cooperation. A detailed view of the work of the UN Volunteers is presented below. 3.2. The Mobilization of UN Volunteers The second component of UNV’s urban agenda is based on the ‘service to others’ type of volunteerism. It entails the use of the comparative advantage of the UN Volunteers providing an added value in international co-operation for urban development. Such ‘service to others’ work of the UN Volunteers has been instrumental not only in supporting ‘pure’ volunteer activities
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 UNV’s niche in urban work PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME UNV’s niche in urban work Page 32 (explained above), but also in providing volunteer component of broader initiatives, for instance, in supporting government gencies and the development of the private sector in the South. Selected attributes of the UN Volunteers to carry out urbanrelated work – Outreach work at the urban grassroots: human resources, labour-intensity, long term presence: overall, grassroots work is highly labour-intensive – as it entails long-term, dayto-day, face-to-face activities. According to Moser (1993), who studied and wrote widely on urban community work, the key component in such work is professionally trained staff to assist the communities in developing their own projects. According to her, ‘resources (other than human) to start these projects are often of secondary importance – especially because many of such projects, initiated or supported by civil society organizations, recognize the need to encourage self-reliant development without dependency. Consequently, project funds were most frequently spent not on physical infrastructural materials, but on the fielding of professionally-trained staff to assist the community in developing their projects.’ This clearly highlights the relevance of UNV’s contribution. Within the UN System, UNV is becoming known as an ‘outreach’ agency, since the UN Volunteers often work directly with communities, fostering local participatory approaches to sustainable development. This ‘field perspective’ shapes the character of UNV’s work, emphasizing the kind of projects/programmes that can show direct impact down to the community level. At times, UN Volunteers also live in the communities with which they work, thus experiencing their problems first-hand as well as identifying strengths and mobilizing indigenous resources. UNV is able to carry out outreach activities during extensive periods of time (considering, for instance, the extent of the assignments of the UN Volunteers); thus ensuring an in-depth contribution to the communities. – Broad scope of action and flexibility: problems and needs vary widely from city to city, and within cities. Therefore, broad scope of action and flexibility allow UNV to offer tailor-made responses to each specific situation and to adapt to many different circumstances. Universality in Page 33 selection and placement is a distinguishing characteristic of the programme. For instance, during the period 1971–2001, more than 16,000 UN Volunteers from some 140 nations have worked in an equal number of countries. Such a diversity allows UNV to support a broad scope of initiatives in many different sectors of activity and geographic regions. The UN Volunteers are recruited on the basis of specific needs and post descriptions in the light of the blend of qualifications, skills and experience sought. They are people from different age groups, from mid-20s to over 60 years old. The average age of the UN Volunteers is 39. They are recruited from both developing and industrialized countries. There are more than 4,000 candidates on the UNV roster, in some 110 professional categories. There is also a variety of types of UN Volunteers. A given project can be supported by the most appropriate combination of profiles of UN Volunteers, including: - International and national UN Volunteers Specialists: They are university graduates with considerable professional experience in many different fields. Also, the use of national volunteers has the added advantage of building local capacity through on-the-job training. - International and national UNV Field Workers: Majority of them drawn from local communities for their active leadership profiles. They contribute as UN Volunteers through their inside/personal knowledge of grassroots communities. - UNV advisors recruited under two special programmes, TOKTEN (returning professionals to serve on short-term assignments) and UNISTAR (short-term advisory services, mainly in business development activities), as well as short-term specialists (especially in situations of conflict). - On-line services: In addition to mobilizing people to work directly in the field (‘on-site’ UN Volunteers), UNV is now also mobilizing volunteers who cannot travel to the field but can work from home using information and communication technology.
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