UN Volunteers chief visits Uganda

Mar 20, 2019

Accompanied by UNV Regional Manager for the East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), Njoya Tikum, Olivier shall meet with government representatives, UN Volunteers and partners in the region.

The executive coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, Olivier Adam is currently on a tour around East Africa to boost volunteerism in the region.

During his visit, Olivier will visit Uganda, where the government launched the Graduate Volunteers Scheme (GVS) last year with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNV.

According to a communiqué from UNV, 1,422 onsite UN Volunteers served in the broader Eastern African region in 2018 with 399 of them serving in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The volunteers served in different areas of development, humanitarian and peace-building assignments.

Accompanied by UNV Regional Manager for the East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), Njoya Tikum, Olivier shall meet with government representatives, UN Volunteers and partners in the region.

The communiqué further reads that the East African countries continue to show interest in leveraging volunteerism for development, with Kenya already having a national volunteer policy in place. However, to be most effective, volunteers often require support from wider, more formalized structures.

Olivier's mission is to galvanize increased support and recognition for the integration of volunteers in development programming in the region.

 "Volunteerism is a powerful means of engaging people in promoting individual and collective action, leading to sustainable development for people by people," Olivier says.

He will also meet senior Government and UN officials in Tanzania to appraise the engagement of UN Volunteers in various programmes.

While in Kenya, Olivier is expected to visit the Kakuma refugee camp where UNV has been working with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR on a refugee resilience project for almost two years now. He will also give a lecture at Mount Kenya University and discuss partnerships with the University towards engagement of the University's students as UN University Volunteers.

Kenya is the highest UN Volunteers' sending country globally, with 325 Kenyans currently serving as UN Volunteers in different countries across the world.

Working closely with UNV in the region, the Africa Union (AU) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) have also developed volunteer programmes to help tackle regional development challenges.

"These sub-regional exchanges of volunteers help enhance increased south-south exchange of development experiences and fast track the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and AU's Agenda 2063," reads the communiqué.

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