Joint Statement from the United Nations Volunteers and the Volunteer Family of the International Civil Society Bureau

Paris, 18 July 2003 -- Madam ChairPerson, distinguished members of the Government Delegations, colleagues from the Observers group, Ladies and Gentlemen:

On behalf of the United Nations Volunteers and the Volunteering Family of the Civil Society Bureau, I thank you for the opportunity to make a brief statement to this Intersessional meeting.

We will not make reference this morning to suggestions about the role of volunteering in the Declaration of Principles or Action Plan. These are available to you in official documents available from the WSIS web site.

Instead, we would like to concentrate on the reasons why, in our opinion, volunteering and volunteer action should be considered in the first place.

First, because without volunteering we would not have essential elements of the Information Society as we know it. Volunteer action was essential in the development of UNIX, Internet protocols and the Web, to give a few examples just on the technical side. That, in itself, is a significant contribution to be recognized. And volunteer action will likely continue to drive some of the social applications of ICT, further shaping the Information Society.

Secondly, because the capacity needs on the use of ICT for Development are massive, ranging from basic technological literacy to applications for education, health, community empowerment, economic opportunities and in fact across the entire development spectrum. Volunteering has a special niche in capacity building for human development and in creating human capital. We believe volunteer action is needed to help address those capacity needs, since there are many people who are willing and able to collaborate. Volunteers facilitate access to information as well as production of local content. They train people and help them to apply specific ICTs for their particular development processes, especially at the community level. Furthermore, they help to raise awareness about the possibilities of these technologies, like for example by providing outreach to local users in community telecenters. Overall, we believe that volunteer action is probably indispensable in order to truly mainstream ICT into development processes. In fact, at the meeting between the Government and Civil Society Bureaus this morning, there were specific calls from government to identify mechanism for multistakeholder action in regards to capacity building.

Thirdly, because the Information Society can change the way people volunteer. For example, Online Volunteering is a new way to collaborate through the Internet, in a different continent or in your own city. This allows for a significant increase in the number of people who can now contribute their time and knowledge to development.

Fourthly, because volunteering involves hundreds of millions of people around the world, often through civil society, but also through companies, schools, trade unions, religious groups, and even outside of organized or formal groups (eg. in neighbourhoods and villages). Therefore we would like to dispel any notion of volunteering as being a new social sector: it is simply, but very importantly, an expression of civic action, and one that makes significant inputs to social cohesion. There is every indication this will continue to be the case in the Information Society.

Fifthly, the international community widely acknowledges the value of volunteering for development. For example, General Assembly Resolution A/57/L.8 from October of 2002, coming after the successful International Year of Volunteers 2001, recognized the valuable contribution of volunteering to economic and social development, that it benefits society at large, and that is an important component of any strategy aimed at poverty reduction and sustainable development. It also recognized that volunteering, particularly at the community level, will help achieve the development goals and objectives set in the Millennium Declaration and in other major United Nations conferences, summits (including this one), special sessions and their follow-up meetings.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, volunteers embody a value, which I for one would like to see included in our common vision of the Information Society. That value is solidarity. Volunteers are agents of solidarity all over the world, in the South and in the North, bringing about a more fair and inclusive Information Society. That is an important reason to include and harness the value of volunteering and volunteer action in your deliberations and the key documents for this Summit.

Thank you for your kind attention and consideration.