UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS MARK 30TH ANNIVERSARY
| Press Release NOTE 5671 |
Note No. 5671
18 June 2001
Note to Correspondents
UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS MARK 30TH ANNIVERSARY
NEW YORK, 18 June -- United Nations Volunteers (UNV) will commemorate its 30th anniversary in a special event to be held at 3 p.m., 21 June in Conference Room 2 at United Nations Headquarters. The media is invited.
Speakers include Louise Fréchette, Deputy United Nations Secretary-General, Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Marcos Kisil, President of Brazil's Institute for Democracy and Social Investment.
United Nations Volunteers and United Nations Resident Coordinators will present and discuss efforts to assist people living with HIV/AIDS in Botswana, connect communities with information and communication technology in Bhutan, safeguard human rights in Guatemala, and bridge from peacekeeping to reconstruction in East Timor. Over the past three decades, some
30,000 professionals have served as United Nations Volunteers around the world.
The event will also highlight initiatives undertaken in the course of the International Year of Volunteers 2001, for which UNV has been designated the focal point by the General Assembly.
UNV through the Years
On 17 December 1970, the General Assembly decided to "establish within the existing framework of the United Nations system, with effect from 1 January 1971, an international group of volunteers, the members of which shall be designated collectively and individually as United Nations Volunteers"(A/RES/2659). It called on UNDP to administer the programme.
The first United Nations Volunteers served in Yemen. By the end of 1971,
41 Volunteers had taken up assignments in five countries. In its first decade, UNV focused in areas of technical cooperation -- bringing skills in health, education, agriculture, fisheries, and engineering. In 1991, the first national United Nations Volunteers were recruited to work in Sudan. Since then, international and national United Nations Volunteers work side-by-side to carry out effective community-based initiatives in many countries, and the participatory approach has become a distinct feature of the work by United Nations Volunteers.
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The 1990s marked a period of great expansion for UNV and at the end of the decade, United Nations Volunteers carried out more than 5,100 assignments. The last decade also ushered in a new phase for UNV: electoral assistance and support to humanitarian relief and United Nations peace efforts. Since 1992, over
4,000 Volunteers have served in 19 different peacekeeping operations.
Last year's Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (Brahimi Report: http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peaceoperations/) specifically recognized the valuable contributions made by United Nations Volunteers in peacekeeping missions.
Today, UNV has broadened its support to global volunteerism in all of its forms, primarily through its role as focal point for the United Nations International Year of Volunteers (IYV 2001: www.iyv2001.org).
UNV also promotes new forms of volunteerism such as the United Nations Information Technology Service volunteer corps (UNITeS -- www.unites.org) and home-based, online volunteering service managed by UNV and carried out in partnership with UNDP and Netaid.org (http://app.netaid.org/OV).
For more information about this news release, contact: Nanette Braun;
(212) 906-36340; email: nanette.braun@unv.org; Yuko Osawa;
tel: (212) 906 3634; mobile: 917 834 5351;email: yuko.osawa@undp.org;
Richard Nyberg; (49 228) 815 2223; email: richard.nyberg@unv.org
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