United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme
Updated October 2003
 

Guiding Principles/Objectives

Programmes

Overall strategy
► To promote volunteers as effective capacity-building agents on the uses and opportunities of ICT for human development (ICT4D), in particular towards the attainment of the MDGs.
► To promote volunteerism as an essential part of
ICT4D efforts in developing countries, and to serve as a resource to other organizations on this subject.
► To promote the integration of ICTs into operational activities and processes relating to the management and support of volunteers.

Guiding principles
ICTs are effective and efficient tools for access to information, for generation of knowledge and for
communications among development stakeholders around the world. Information and knowledge are
important than ever for advancing human development, and indeed, to achieve the freedoms from "Want" and "Fear" that the UN Secretary General described in his landmark "Millennium Report". Additionally, volunteers play a crucial, if not vital, role, in the implementation and maintenance of ICT4D efforts, helping them to be driven at a grass-roots-level, and adding an element of neutrality to such efforts.

Objectives
1) Provide the proper support and enabling environment for volunteers so they can help better integrate ICT in the development processes to which they contribute.
2) Work in partnership with other development organizations so that volunteerism can play a part in
responding to ICT4D needs.
3) Utilize ICT as a new channel for volunteering (as in online volunteering).
4) Promote and support the use of electronic communications to facilitate volunteer networking in
relation to human development issues.
5) Apply ICT intensively in operational processes related to recruitment, rostering, placement, monitoring and support of volunteers and volunteer assignments, as well in management support functions (reporting, statistics, staff communications).

Areas of Application:

Any area of development, and in particular to those covered by the UN Millennium Development Goals.

UNV manages two major ICT volunteering initiatives, UNITeS and NetAid Online Volunteering, which themselves help UNV to better integrate ICT into its overall development strategy. In addition, it has a special unit that is helping to mainstream ICT into the agency's field activities.

► UNITeS (see details in the  “Questionnaire reply” section or under its own entry “United Nations Information Technology Services").
www.unites.org

► NetAid Online Volunteering is a service provided by the NetAid Foundation and "powered by UNV".
(See details in the  “Questionnaire reply” section)
www.netaid.org/ov/index_html 

Participation in Multi-donor Programmes:

All of UNV's work on ICT for Development is done with and through partners:

► UNICT TF
► WSIS
► UNDP
► UNIFEM
► Soros Foundation
► World Links for Development
► SangoNet (South Africa)
► Acorvol (Ecuador)
► Enterprise Namibia
► LDC initiative with Cisco

See the “Questionnaire reply” section for details

► Ms. Alexandra Haglund-Petitbo, UNITeS – UNV, Alexandra.Haglund-Petitbo@unvolunteers.org
► Ms. Jayne Cravens, Online Volunteering – UNV, jayne.cravens@unvolunteers.org