Integrating Volunteering in the Next Decade

A/RES/67/138View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda items 27 Social development and 27b Social development, including questions relating to the world social situation and to youth, ageing, disabled persons and the family, published in 2013.

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report · 2015

Year	Symbol	Title		Mandate resolution
2015	A/70/118	Integrating volunteering in the next decade report of the Secretary-General		A/RES/67/138

What subjects does this mandate have?

4 subjects

Community Participation International Voluntary Services Voluntary Service Youth

What’s in this document?

25 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the report of the Secretary-General;³

³A/67/153.

Commends the contributions of national and international volunteers for their fundamental role in the promotion of peace and development;

Congratulates the 70,000 national and international volunteers whose contributions were fundamental to the success of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as the thousands of others who gave their time to support the Games, and looks forward to the contributions of national and international volunteers at the 2014 World Soccer Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games;

Calls upon stakeholders to do their utmost to strengthen the policy relating to volunteering, including youth volunteering, at the local, national and international levels, as well as integrating volunteering in all relevant issues of the United Nations as main objectives for the next decade;

Emphasizes the role of the community as volunteer-accepting stakeholder in efforts to overcome challenges and to retain ownership of the community, and calls for a people-centred, holistic approach in order to build an inclusive and resilient society, supported by a social bond among the people through community-based approaches that facilitate the integration of volunteers;

Recognizes that an approach to volunteering may consider drawing on the notion of human security in accordance with all the provisions of General Assembly resolution 66/290 of 10 September 2012;

Notes with appreciation the growth and the development of volunteerism since the International Year of Volunteers, and encourages Member States to consider peace and development programmes and initiatives that offer opportunities to build strong and cohesive volunteer coalitions around shared goals at the local, national, regional and international levels;

Invites Member States to mobilize and support the research community globally to carry out more studies on the subject of volunteerism, including collecting data disaggregated by gender, age and disability, in partnership with civil society, in order to provide sound knowledge as a foundation for policies and programmes;

Calls upon Member States and other stakeholders to favour the integrating of volunteering in all relevant issues of the United Nations, in particular to contribute to accelerated achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, as well as giving appropriate consideration to the issue in the discussions on the post-2015 United Nations development agenda;

Urges Member States and the United Nations system to create favourable and safe environments to enable a diversity of volunteers to participate in volunteer activities;

Requests Member States and the United Nations system to work together with other volunteer-involving organizations to support efforts to enhance the security and protection of volunteers;

Encourages Member States, in cooperation with the international community and civil society, to promote volunteerism in all segments of society, recognizing the benefits of diverse life experiences to volunteerism, and to incorporate volunteerism into education curricula for all ages and into school-community engagements;

Requests the United Nations Volunteers to continue their efforts to promote volunteerism, including through the integration of volunteerism in peace and development as well as the development of innovative recruitment modalities, such as online volunteering;

Calls upon organizations in the United Nations system to continue to assist in the promotion of the United Nations Volunteers and upon development partners and all Member States in a position to do so to increase funding to the Special Voluntary Fund to conduct research and training, to undertake pilot innovations and to explore other funding modalities;

Emphasizes that volunteerism offers valuable opportunities for youth engagement and leadership to contribute to the development of peaceful and inclusive societies, while also allowing young people to acquire skills, build their capacities and increase their employability;

Urges the United Nations Volunteers and other relevant United Nations organizations to promote a youth volunteer programme, called for in the five-year action agenda of the Secretary-General, also urges all stakeholders to promote youth volunteering, including through the programme, in cooperation with the United Nations system, and invites Member States to consider voluntary contributions to the youth volunteering trust fund for the purpose of the programme;

Recognizes the important role played by women volunteers, inter alia, in meeting women’s needs, and encourages women’s leadership and participation in all forms of volunteering;

Reaffirms the need to encourage volunteerism in all its forms, which contributes significantly to the cohesiveness and the well-being of communities and of societies as a whole and which involves and benefits all segments of society, especially women, children, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, minorities, migrants and those who remain excluded for social or economic reasons;

Encourages Member States to support intergenerational solidarity and knowledge transmission through volunteering programmes;

Also encourages Member States to promote, where appropriate, further engagement of the private sector, through the expansion of corporate volunteering and employee volunteer activities, as well as increased coordination between the private and public sectors;

Encourages all stakeholders to recognize the importance of coordinating between the skills and the experience of the volunteers and the actual needs in the community, and emphasizes the need to bridge volunteering gaps;

Emphasizes that people-to-people relations are the core value of volunteerism, and encourages further efforts to build and strengthen networks among volunteers and all relevant partners at the national, regional and international levels, including World Volunteer Web as a global networking hub, as well as new technologies and social media;

Encourages Member States and other stakeholders to integrate volunteering in disaster risk reduction, thereby reflecting the issues discussed in the thematic debate on disaster risk reduction, held in New York on 12 April 2012 during the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly, and in the World Ministerial Conference on Disaster Reduction in Tohoku, held in Japan on 3 and 4 July 2012, which include the involvement of volunteers in planning, and the importance of education, training and volunteer-based disaster response, including voluntary evacuation;

Also encourages Member States and other stakeholders to integrate volunteering in peacebuilding activities, thereby, inter alia, making more effective use of volunteers, including international United Nations Volunteers, and reflecting the importance of mobilizing and building the capacity of young people;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its seventieth session, under the item entitled “Social development”, on the implementation of the present resolution, including a plan of action to be developed by the United Nations Volunteers programme to integrate volunteering in peace and development in the next decade and beyond, to be submitted to the Assembly and to be considered by Member States.

Reissued for technical reasons on 15 July 2013.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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