United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV): Volunteering in the Information Society

Document WSIS/PC-2/CONTR/105-E, 21 February 2003
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United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV)

VOLUNTEERING IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

Introduction

The United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV), the UN organization that mobilizes volunteers and promotes volunteerism worldwide, has made ICT for Development a corporate priority since 1999. The implications of the digital divide are many and pervasive, spanning the entire spectrum of human development. In terms of ICT capacity the needs are enormous, ranging from basic techno-literacy to sophisticated knowledge for information management.

But there are many people wanting to share their skills and experience on a voluntary basis(including among youth and the private sector). UNV believes that volunteers can therefore play a fundamental role in helping people draw digital dividends from the new technologies.

In recognizing this, the UN Secretary General called for a new volunteer initiative in his Millennium Report (April 2000), the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), to build human/institutional capacity on the uses and opportunities of ICT for development.

UNV, as the volunteer arm of the UN, received the task of coordinating and managing UNITeS (www.unites.org). The first UN Volunteers under the UNITeS umbrella were placed in India in August of 2000, and since then over 80 volunteers have served in some 40 developing countries.

Even before UNITeS was announced, UNV was already managing another major project that takes advantage of the Internet as a barely untapped channel for volunteering in development cooperation. NetAid's Online Volunteering service (www.netaid.org/OV), “powered” byUNV, was launched in March 2000. Since then, over 5000 individuals have used it to
contribute their time and skills in collaboration with development stakeholders (usually NGOs).

Most of them dedicate a few hours per week; all do so via the Internet. Moreover, UNV is just beginning to explore the tremendous potential for complementarity between volunteers “online” and the more than 5000 UN Volunteers “on-site”, in programme countries (through UNITeS, for example).