The United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) is the United Nations programme that supports sustainable human development globally through the promotion of volunteerism and the mobilization of volunteers. It operates against a background of growing recognition that volunteerism brings benefits to both society at large and the individual volunteer; that it makes important contributions, economically as well as socially; and that it contributes to more cohesive societies by building trust and reciprocity among citizens. Universal and inclusive, UNV embraces all types of volunteer action while holding to the values of free will, commitment, engagement and solidarity, which are the foundations of volunteerism. UNV engaged 7,521 UNV volunteers in 2007, on a total of 7,766 assignments. With an average of 39 years and the requisite professional skills and qualifications of some 5 to 10 years relevant experience, UNV volunteers served in 139 countries in 2007 and came themselves from 162. The majority – 77 per cent – come from developing countries themselves. One third of UNV volunteers served in their own countries, with the others carrying out international assignments. The financial equivalent of programme activities exceeds US$150 million annually. UNV is headquartered in Bonn, Germany and has approximately 150 staff positions – the majority in Bonn with some dozen positions in different UN peacekeeping missions, and other Headquarters locations (e.g. New York and Tokyo). The major organizational groups within UNV are: - The Office of the Executive Coordinator, comprising also Special Operations, and units for Evaluation and Management Support;
- The Programme Development and Operations Group (PDOG) comprising three geographical sections, as well a Volunteer Resources Unit and a Research and Development Section;
- The Support Services Group (SSG) comprising sections for Information Support Services, Finance, Human Resources, as well as Units for Common Services and Administration; and
- The Partnerships, Communications and Resource Mobilization Group (PCRG) comprising units for Donors Relations and for Communications.
Organizational Setting The Programme Development and Operations Group (PDOG) of UNV has primary responsibility for programming in the organization and includes three geographic sections (Africa; ARLAC - covering Latin America, the Caribbean and Arab States, and APEC – covering Asia, Pacific, Europe and CIS).
The Executive Board in June 2006 approved the Business Model (BM) as the main planning and programming framework for UNV. This is the basis and provided the framework for the UNV Corporate Plan 2009 – 2011 that presents high-level corporate outcomes and outputs for both programme and management processes, thus capturing all of UNV’s work. Under the goal of UNV, which is to contribute to peace and development through volunteerism, there are four outcomes: (1) Contribution of volunteerism to development is recognized globally; (2) Volunteerism is integrated into development policies, strategies and programming; (3) Volunteer engagement in development is strengthened and diversified, and (4) UNV is recognised as a relevant, results-based and efficient organization.
It is in this context that the PDOG has formulated a programme strategy for the period of 2009 – 2011. In integrating volunteerism into development programming, specific focus and sub-focus areas have been identified for special targeting: Delivery of Basic Services - Strengthening local governance
- Primary health care and HIV & AIDS
- Functional literacy
Crisis Prevention and Recovery - Disaster risk reduction
- Early recovery including livelihoods
- Local conflict resolution / reconciliation / peace-building / human rights
Environment and Climate Change - Community-based natural resource management and sustainable biodiversity conservation
- Community-based adaptation to climate change
- Food security through sustainable livelihoods
The strategy also has three crosscutting social inclusion pillars i.e. youths, gender, and marginalised groups. In addition, partnership must be an integral aspect of any UNV intervention.
The focus of this consultancy will be the Practice Note on integrating volunteerism into natural resource management and community-based adaptation to climate change. UNV intervention in this focus area is driven by a number of factors including global recognition of the role of volunteerism in environmental protection as well as General Assembly resolutions and the UNDP Executive Board calling on UNV to contribute to the global environmental and climate change agenda. The global environmental movement has been based on volunteerism. It is driven by individual volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations from all focus areas and levels of society carrying out initiatives in the field of environment and climate change, as well as promoting environmental social action and volunteerism. The Johannesburg 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio + 10), in its call for major groups to participate in implementation, specifically singles out volunteer groups. An internal review of projects financed by UNV-administered funds between 2006 and 2009 revealed that almost 40% of such projects supported volunteerism for the environment. Natural resource management and sustainable biodiversity conservation: The biological diversity and variability of ecosystems are traditionally used and conserved by communities through various informal institutions and traditional ecological knowledge systems. Volunteerism supports culturally appropriate, sustainable management of water, land and forest resources through the engagement of community and local level stakeholders.
UNV volunteers can support the efforts of other development actors in this regard by: - Raising awareness and mobilising voluntary action among community members on locally-relevant, integrated environment management practices (e.g. forest protection, reforestation, natural resource management and conservations areas);
- Engaging community members through volunteerism in participatory environmental assessment, planning, implementation and monitoring of natural resource management efforts that are compatible with local livelihoods for the poor;
- Promoting biodiversity-friendly, alternative, local livelihoods, e.g. community ecotourism;
- Helping develop practical volunteer-based conservation and management activities to assist species and eco-systems adapt to climate change;
- Playing a mediating and conflict prevention role where the use of scarce resources causes divisions in communities; and
- Promoting biodiversity conservation awareness.
Community-based adaptation to climate change: Community-based adaptation to climate change refers to actions undertaken by or for a community to alleviate or respond to the negative impacts of the changing climate, to increase its resilience to adverse changes, improve human security and enhance socio-economic development. These actions include sustainable livelihoods, food security, new technologies and agricultural practices and water management. UNV volunteers can support the efforts of other development actors in this regard by: - Raising awareness about climate change and community efforts in adaptation to climate change, variability and extreme weather events;
- Sensitising and mobilising community members to participate in environmental risks assessments and existing community-based coping and adaptation practices with a view to designing local community initiatives;
- Sensitising and mobilising community members to periodically undertake vulnerability reduction assessments in identifying, addressing and tracking vulnerabilities resulting from climate change;
- Sensitising and mobilising community members to make voluntary community contributions, in-kind and financial, for implementation of local initiatives;
- Engaging community members and leaders to measure and recognise the value of volunteer contributions of communities and review how volunteerism can contribute to the sustainability of the results of community adaptation initiatives;
- Providing technical support and knowledge transfer to improve land management skills and diversify livelihoods to enhance resilience and ensure long-term sustainability; and
- Convening local governments, professional groups, academia, NGOs and other stakeholders to improve community access to information and resources.
To support its work on the environment agenda, UNV will work in direct partnership with the UNDP Environment and Energy Group, the UNDP Global Environment Facility (GEF) Office and the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP). It will also work with other UN organisations with which it has existing partnerships (e.g., UNCCD, HABITAT) and will develop further partnerships with organisations like UNESCO, UNFCCC, UNEP, as well as with civil society organisations. UNV activities in this area will be closely coordinated and guided by the UNDP practice note “Capacity Development for Environmental Sustainability.”
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The consultation will be under the overall supervision of the Chief of the Research and Development (R&D) Unit, who may delegate to colleagues within R&D as appropriate. Interim deliverables are defined for steps of the consultation for monitoring and quality assurance purposes.
The expect output is a Practice Note knowledge document with: - Case studies analysing the role and contributions of volunteerism to natural resource management and sustainable biodiversity conservation and to community-based adaptation to climate change. A minimum of 4 case studies on each of the two sub-section focus area are to be included. The case studies will draw from at least 4 developing regions of the world. Each of the social inclusion pillars of youth, gender and marginalised persons will also be featured in at least one of the case studies. The focus of the case studies are on the contribution of volunteerism in general, not limited to the contribution of UNV or UNV volunteers.
- From analysis of the case studies will be drawn lessons learned and practice recommendations for integrating volunteerism into this focus area, through partnerships, especially at the local, meso and national levels.
Key Areas/Issues to be Addressed UNV recognises that there is a wide range of expressing and promoting volunteerism and it varies among different people, contexts, and cultures. Based on the objectives of the programme or project and reviewing the volunteerism-related activities undertaken, the research will consider the following key questions: - What are the key results? How are they achieved?
- What factors help or hinder the volunteering contribution?
- What is the added value of volunteering? Is there any specific added value of volunteering in terms of this focus area?
- Who were the partners involved? What value did the different partners bring? What were the key factors contributing to building good partnerships?
- How is volunteering perceived by other stakeholders and partner organizations?
- Are there any actions that demonstrate that volunteerism can support the inclusion of youth, gender, or other marginalised persons? Is there any evidence of changes in practices relating to inclusion because of the volunteerism aspect of the project?
- To what extent did the volunteerism in the project influence capacity development?
- Is it possible to establish a link between volunteering actions promoted by the project and stimulating national/local volunteerism and/or stakeholder participation more generally or in other areas?
- How can these lessons be used to enhance future planning and partnering in integrating volunteerism to programming into this focus area?
Methods and Approaches The consultancy will be home-based and done in part based on UNV sources, but will also require the consultant to identify and pursue additional primary and secondary information sources, in developing the case studies. Methods and tools can be combined at various stages in the process: - Desk review: Most of the relevant UNV documents will be compiled beforehand to expedite the review by the consultant. The consultant will be responsible for designing and implementing additional research and exploratory consultations to identify case study topics.
- Based on the desk reviews and exploratory consultations, a detailed outline of the proposed case study topics will be drafted and submitted to UNV for approval
- Direct informant research: The consultant should in most cases also need to conduct interviews or online exchanges in order to obtain the necessary data for fully developing the case studies.
- Analysis and report writing
- Presentation of the draft note for UNV comments will be followed by a final version incorporating comments as appropriate.
Steps in the review process and estimated number of working days and deadline for completion - UNV and volunteerism orientation. Preparatory work, desk reviews and exploratory consultations, including detailed outline of case study and research plan 8 days, deadline - 27 July 2009
- Direct informant research plus initial analysis - 5 days
- Analysis and practice note drafting. Submit draft to UNV. 5 days, deadline - 21 Aug 2009
- Incorporation of UNV comments into practice note. Produce final document of approximately 15 pages. 2 days
- Total: 20 days deadline - 18 Sept 2009
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