Systematic Volunteerism in Peace and Development Interventions Country: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
2017-03-15陈丹露
陈丹露
Presently, the issue of completing a systematic volunteerism has drawn an increasing amount of attention from governments, UN entities, international organizations and NGOs. The United Nations Volunteers program, has integrated global and nationals volunteering for several decades, made system effectiveness in the fields of environment, poverty, networking, facilities and etc. Still, UNV is encountering the obstacles in the course of collaborations and volunteering, such as the insufficient of networking, uncompleted training system, defective database and diversities of regional culture. Thus, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland expresses its satisfaction of the efforts, and calls upon governments and organizations to tackle the current obstacles.
Retrospect the goals and the programs that UNV has taken in actions, UNV combined Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable development in both agenda and goals. In 2012, the 67th General Assembly highlighted how volunteering can significantly devote to the achievement of the MDGs, from the aspects of youth engagement, peace building, knowledge transmission and etc. In December 2014, the Secretary-General presented reports in terms of requesting the GA to synthesize the full range of inputs available on the post-2015 development agenda. Those actions and appeals encompassed peace, health partnership, poverty and hunger, which has already involved approximately 10.7 millions people in diversity of regions. Having devoted attention, the related actions has raised the awareness of local and nationals, enhanced social inclusion and provided justices, those issues above have achieved striking effects. Nevertheless, the classifications of volunteers, the online training system in some undeveloped area and the collaborations of multi-level organizations and governments still remains the barriers in order to improve the efficiency and build a systematic volunteerism.
UK has made commitment for the global volunteering since the middle of last century. Firstly, integrated the volunteers in locals and classified in some specific fields has been appropriately completed in the past decades. Secondly, UK government has establishes some concerning laws about volunteers rights, for the sake of making sure that volunteers are treated fairly and consistently. Thirdly, having used the strengths of technology and science, governments and locals publicize the current programs online in purpose of appealing to volunteers to participate in the program. Fourthly, government has fully utilized the Volunteer Service Organization (VSO) in UK to fight poverty in developing countries. In recent years, UK government has spread VSO to surrounding countries and region organizations, especially to some developed countries in Europe , for the sake of strengthen the power in the field of technology, skills, academic and finance to changing lives in the developing areas. Due to the four implements above, UK has united the volunteers in different local sectors to dealing with the same field, arouse the enthusiasm of volunteers and strengthen the comprehension with developing countries through finance them network resources. It is worth noting that UK came across barriers when carry out the related programs and collaborations, such as lack of man resource in labour force, the refugee crisis in Europe nowadays and insufficient of collaborations with UN entities. The mentioned barriers still need to be solved which matters to the recruitment and storage of volunteers and global develop works.
In this conference, UK would like to base on the current situation, focusing on the MDGs as the agenda. Further, UK has the strong intention to collaborate with the organizations in European areas and global, especially enhance the association with UN entities. In the meantime, UK would establish the intelligent-sharing mechanism, which includes the information and quantity of volunteers whose nationality are UK and volunteers from other regions who is devoting in UK local program right now. On the month basis, the governments would share some statics online encompasses the percentages of different volunteering programs and the data of volunteers information. To exploit UKs advantages in the domains of languages teaching and network resources, UK would esteem the needs of other governments and organizations, especially the needs of the two domains above. Meanwhile, UK has the necessity to pay attention to the scarcity of man resource in the nation, in order to carry on the collaborations with developing countries.
UK proposes the following detailed proposals to improve systematic volunteerism in terms of recruitment, training, online assignments. Those proposals are briefly separated into six steps:
· UK reaffirms the MDGs mentioned in the post-2015 agenda and shows its willing to formulate the period-goals with other member states, which are related to the current situations and be worth solving.
· UK considers media and online transparency in global, monthly data generalization of volunteers is needed in different regions while quarterly data generalization in needs in UN entities and other organizations, in order to analyze the storages and classifications of volunteers.
· UK requests developed countries to provide technical aids and network resource to the developing countries, in the sake of enhancing the online service and network security (including who have access to the website and the data); meanwhile, UK requires developing countries to provide man resource, in order to stimulate a win-win situation for both developed countries and developing countries by collaborating.
· UK supports the register mechanism improvement, encompasses the basic information(name, gender, age, degree, major) which applicants need to register, the domains that applicants have willing to engage in, the assignment that applicants need to complete offline after the progress of register.
· UK emphasizes for the engagement of stakeholders, local organizations and international organizations to focus on the main purpose UN entities, due to the reason that UN entities are well-known for the mobilizations and recruitment, and their Resolutions have the legal force in global.
· UK recommends governments and organizations to add related volunteering expenditure (such as insurance of volunteers, infrastructure construction) into the finance budget, 10%-12% might be reasonable due to the definition of volunteer from UN “people who are not devoting for the purpose the money and interests, but for neighbors and world-contribution activists”, so unlike other occupations, volunteer can economize the salary.
· UK appeals United Nations Human Rights Council to be aimed at the security and human rights of volunteers in conflicting and undeveloped areas.
In a conclusion, as a developed country in Europe, an essential member states in both UN and EU, one of the worlds fourth-largest economy, has the willing to make commitment to infrastructure construction, technology and train the volunteers who comes from developing countries. Looking forward to improving the systematic volunteerism with all the member states and organizations.
References:
[1]DNA:http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid= 70f7d38c-c2f9-4673-83bd-264175ecbd52%40sessionmgr4001&hid=4210&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=101838464&db=aph.
[2]http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=3&sid= 70f7d38c-c2f9-4673-83bd-264175ecbd52%40sessionmgr4001&hid=4210&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=103669367&db=aph.
[3]Volunteerism and post-2015 agenda.
[4]Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 2012 http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/67/138.