Learning to create solidarity: United Nations Volunteers programme

UN Chronicle, Sept-Nov, 2003 by Edmundo Werna, Claudia Schneider

One of the major activities of the United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) focuses on the improvement of living conditions in communities. Volunteerism thereby plays a crucial role, following the overall UNV framework of action and its specific role as a partner in international assistance for urban development.

The UNV urban agenda promotes social and environmental development processes of communities through volunteerism as an innovative approach to development in general. Cities often comprise several volunteer organizations, as well as individuals who contribute to the various sectors of development, self-help groups, solidarity groups with specific purposes, and corporate volunteerism (private enterprise-support communities).

In the framework of a citywide approach, UNV also promotes and systemizes volunteer activities through local governments. Inter-city volunteerism supports not only the development of poorer settlements in megacities but also creates a broader sense of solidarity among people who live in different localities. UNV promotes schemes of cooperation between local authorities, as well as intercity corporate volunteerism.

UNV urban-related activities are characterized by its outreach work at the urban grass roots through its human resources, labour-intensiveness and long-term presence. In other words, grass-roots work is highly labour-intensive as it entails long-term day-to-day and face-to-face activities.

This requires professionally trained start to assist communities in developing projects to encourage self-reliant development. Consequently, project funds are generally spent not on infrastructure materials but on fielding professionally-trained staff to assist communities. This clearly highlights the relevance of the UNV contribution.

Within the UN system, UNV is known as an "outreach" agency, since volunteers often work directly with urban communities, fostering local participatory approaches to sustainable development. This "field perspective" shapes the character of the UNV work, emphasizing the programmes and projects that evolve direct impact down to the community level.

The UNV niche in urban work is as follows:

Organizational/institutional strengthening. As noted in a UNV publication, Volunteer Participation on Working With the Urban Poor: "In most cases ... external catalyzing agents play an important role in initiating and consolidating the development process [of communities], or accelerating what otherwise would have taken much longer to evolve." An important part of such work concerns the strengthening of grass-roots organizations, which have played a crucial role in the development of urban communities by constituting a forum for each community to get together, organize itself and strengthen its social cohesion and capital; by representing the whole community, vis-a-vis the Government and other external actors; and by catalyzing external support, etc.

Managerial and technical capacity-building. Some organizations often lack managerial skills to deal with many day-to-day hurdles or incorporate institutional changes. Capacity-building constitutes another task which would gain from the unified effect of some of the UNV characteristics, i.e. labour-intensive, long-term work, flexibility (to address differences within and between organizations), and volunteerism (to secure more intense interpersonal connection and synergism, especially in the case of voluntary organizations). Another route to capacity-building is the substantive involvement of national volunteers, who learn through on-the-job training during the execution of the projects. These institutions also have deficiencies in technical staff, such as accountants and information agents, and therefore require training schemes.

In addition, many urban communities have a considerable number of people working in the same field (e.g. fishermen, bricklayers, rickshaw drivers, domestic servants), a fact that could justify the establishment of a training scheme in such a field. This task would also benefit from UNV inputs.

Community animation/orientation. Most urban community members are not aware of their rights and opportunities in the city due to illiteracy and/or recent migration, and therefore do not benefit from them. Furthermore, newcomers are often not aware of the risks and challenges of urban life. Such a situation reveals the importance of a professional who can raise the awareness among community members of their rights and orient them on the risks and challenges, as well as the opportunities and benefits of urban living. This constitutes another assignment that matches the forte of UNV, as it has to be carried out within the communities on a day-to-day, face-to-face basis over extensive periods.

Participatory work. Social cohesion/capital plays a crucial role in development, thus participatory work is at the heart of the process of its construction. External support is of utmost importance because: participatory processes are often more difficult to build in megacities due to the hurdles of urban life (less time to do the groundwork necessary to start the process) and the heterogeneity of the communities (i.e. lack of a common ethnic-cultural background); sometimes community participation has been politically repressed in a number of countries; and some cultures do not have a strong tradition of participatory work.