The gateway: volunteerism and the United Nations system.

• Author: Keher, Donna

IN AUGUST 2006, MILLIONS OF GIRLS AND BOYS in Afghanistan averted the deadly and crippling effects of polio, thanks to thousands of Afghan citizens who participated in a national vaccination campaign. One month later, 35 million people in 122 countries cleaned and restored their neighbourhoods, as part of an annual global environmental initiative. And every day millions of volunteers all over the world--farmers, fishermen, pilots, etc.--read instruments and pass along critical data to help communities predict extreme weather conditions and better cope with the effects.

Spearheaded by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), these examples illustrate eloquently how private individuals volunteer their time, energy and resources towards efforts by UN agencies to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed, "it is not at the United Nations that the MDGs will be achieved. Citizens everywhere, through volunteerism, constitute a tremendous force in helping to make the realization of the Goals a reality".

Volunteerism acts as an effective gateway between the United Nations system and the global citizen. According to one definition of "gateway", it is a network point that acts as an entrance to another network. That captures the essence of volunteerism. It serves as a point that bridges two vast networks: that of the world's leading international intergovernmental institution with that of the global civil society. The interfaces between these networks take many shapes. Sometimes they are in the form of official cooperation between the United Nations and civil society organizations, such as that formalized between the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Rotary International to work together on population and reproductive health issues. Other times, they are spontaneous, such as the efforts of two American women volunteers, who single-handedly launched online what was to become the "34 million friends of UNFPA" campaign, which was successful in raising millions of dollars for the agency's activities. The sheer diversity of interfaces brought about by volunteerism is a significant part of what makes it so important.

Within its mission of harnessing the contribution of volunteers for development, the UN Volunteers (UNV) Programme collaborates with a wide range of UN agencies, funds, programmes and...