Integrating Volunteering Into Peace and Development : The Plan of Action for the Next Decade

Encourages Governments, in partnership with United Nations entities, volunteer-involving organizations, the private sector, civil society, including academia, and other stakeholders, to integrate volunteerism into national development strategies, plans and policies, United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks and “One United Nations” plans, and also encourages the meaningful participation and integration of volunteers into programmes and projects through the provision of adequate means for volunteer action to promote the inclusion of all people, including youth, older persons, women, migrants, refugees, persons with disabilities, minorities and other marginalized groups, to leverage the full potential of volunteerism;

Urges Governments and all other stakeholders to facilitate volunteer action in poverty eradication and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods, recognizing the role that volunteers can play in improving access to employment, education, health care, social protection and public goods through engagement in participatory planning, implementation and monitoring, as appropriate;

Urges Governments and all related stakeholders to incorporate volunteerism into gender mainstreaming strategies, recognizing that peer-to-peer informal volunteering can help to reduce violence against women and girls, contribute to the achievement of gender equality, empower women and girls and strengthen their civic and political participation and leadership;

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;

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

Requests Member States and the United Nations system to work together with volunteer-involving organizations to support efforts to enhance the protection, security and well-being of volunteers, calls upon States to create and maintain, in law and in practice, a safe and enabling environment for volunteers, and encourages the adoption of good practices in the promotion, facilitation and, where applicable, management of volunteerism;

Requests Member States to give full consideration to the plan of action to integrate volunteering into peace and development policies and programmes for the next decade and beyond, and calls upon Governments, the United Nations system, multilateral organizations, civil society, the private sector, academia and volunteer-involving organizations to support, as appropriate, the institutional and resource arrangements set out therein, while recognizing that in the case of the United Nations system this will be done through voluntary contributions;

Invites the collaboration of the United Nations Volunteers programme and other organizations, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, in jointly organizing a global technical meeting in 2020 to further strengthen the engagement and contributions of volunteers with regard to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-third session on the implementation of the present resolution, including the plan of action to integrate volunteering into peace and development policies and programmes for the next decade and beyond, under the item entitled “Social development”.