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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
UNV’s niche in urban work
PART II –
THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME
UNV’s niche in urban work
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assignment. Field workers are community members themselves,
who could therefore well convey their experience in
the city to their less knowledgeable/prepared counterparts.
– Participatory work: the utmost importance of social
cohesion/capital has already been noted in this publication.
It suffices to say that participatory work is at the heart of
the process of construction of social cohesion/capital.
External support to carry out this type of work is of utmost
importance because: (i) participatory processes are often
more difficult to build in cities due to the hurdles of urban
life (less time to do the ground work necessary to start the
process) and due to the heterogeneity of the communities
(lack of a common ethnic-cultural background); (ii)
community participation was (sometimes still is) politically
repressed in a number of countries; (iii) some cultures do
not have a strong tradition of participatory work. The role
and importance of UNV in the construction of social
cohesion/capital was noted before in this paper. The same
applies, by association, to participatory work.
– Mediation between local stakeholders: the current worldwide
attention on (urban) governance has already been noted.
Urban governance concerns the relationship between local
authorities and civil society, entailing negotiations and joint
ventures between different local stakeholders. It may be
seen as a participatory process at the city level. Therefore,
it would benefit from the type of work described above. It is
also worth noting that the neutrality/impartiality of the UN
Volunteers may be particularly valuable in such a context of
mediation. There are of course qualitative differences
between the construction of a participatory process within
a community, and the construction of a governance process
within a city. The type of professional required for each task
is therefore different.
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from professionals who could establish the initial links and
start up the whole process.
– Technical assistance: although external technical assistance
has been criticized for not being sustainable, it is still vital
particularly in least developed countries and/or in situations
of emergency. Under such circumstances, technical
assistance may be pivotal for development and many times
(such as in emergencies) even a matter of life and death.
There is a wide range of technical activities – especially at
the grassroots – which would benefit from the interactiveness
of the attributes of the UN Volunteers, as they are labourintensive,
volunteer-oriented, long term activities (for example,
the whole range of mutual self-help construction work). Also,
technical assistance can indeed be combined with capacitybuilding,
a fact which would reinforce the sustainability of
the activities.
In short, this section has presented selected types of contributions
of UN Volunteers to urban development – without
pretending to have exhausted all possibilities. Rather than overlapping
with or duplicating efforts of other development agencies,
UNV is able to offer a unique contribution. Next, UNV’s
specific contribution in the different sectors of urban development
will be elaborated, with concrete examples.
– Mobilization of resources: in several instances, urban projects
require external resources, as cities and their communities
are often not self-sufficient in everything – especially in such
globalized times of increasing interdependence. However, it
is precisely the most resourceful cities and communities
which have the means (skills, contacts, communication
technology, etc.) to obtain further resources. The poorest
settlements lack such means. Therefore, they would benefit