United Nations Volunteers in Cambodia

The UN Volunteers Programme was established by the UN General Assembly in 1970 and its mandate is to recruit, place and administer qualified volunteers, providing professional support to UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes. UNV Programme is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) but it acts as a development partner for the entire UN system. UNV believes that volunteerism is a powerful means of engaging people to address developing challenges worldwide and contribute to more stable and cohesive communities. It benefits both society at large and the individual volunteer by strengthening trust, solidarity and reciprocity among citizens, and by purposefully creating opportunities for participation. Volunteerism is an instrumental means of action to achieve the new set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Volunteers can help localize the new agenda, provide new spaces of interaction between government and citizens for concrete and scalable actions, leaving no one behind. The first UN Volunteers arrived in Cambodia in 1991 and UNV opened its field office in Cambodia after the establishment of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992. Since 1991 over 1,463 UN Volunteers served in Cambodia in different sectors with almost all UN agencies, NGOs as well as with some Government bodies. During this period over 93 Cambodians served as International UN Volunteers with different UN missions and programmes overseas. Since 2006, UNV Cambodia has also been supporting national volunteer organizations to deploy local volunteers for grassroots initiatives in some of the poorest rural provinces of the country. Alongside this, in 2012, UNV Cambodia, VSO and other organizations proposed for forming a network known as “VolCam” as a revival of volunteer agency support group. Simultaneously, UNV Cambodia also engages with various partners including the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), Volunteer Involving Organizations (VIOs), UN Agencies to strengthen the national and regional systems needed to build capacity for volunteerism. Through the study on Volunteerism and Youth Employment in Cambodia in 2017, UNV Cambodia found out that there was an upward trend of volunteering in Cambodia, which strongly links to employment. Additionally, identifying the issue of skills gaps and shortages Cambodian youths are still facing. UNV Cambodia, along with the India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) Fund and MoEYS have partnered to pilot an innovative approach on youth skills development through volunteering. Since July 2017, the project ‘Poverty reduction among youth in Cambodia – Development of youth volunteers’ skill sets for increased employability’ has been implementing.
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