About Online Volunteering

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme hosts and manages the Online Volunteering service. UNV is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and works through UNDP’s country offices worldwide to place and support UNV Volunteers. UNDP played an important role, along with Cisco Systems, in providing resources to initially launch the Online Volunteering service at NetAid.

Based in Bonn, Germany, the United Nations Volunteers programme is the volunteer arm of the United Nations. Created by the UN General Assembly in 1970, the UNV programme mobilizes volunteers and promotes the ideals of volunteerism around the world. The UNV programme also manages the WorldVolunteerWeb portal, a global knowledge hub on volunteering and an effective platform for campaigning, advocacy, information dissemination and networking. By promoting volunteerism and mobilizing volunteers, UNV actively supports the efforts of national governments and the international community to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

As a part of its activities to support sustainable human development, UNV in 2005 year provided opportunities for over 8,000 skilled and experienced professionals, 70 per cent of whom from developing countries, to engage in peace, relief and development initiatives in some 145 countries. These UN Volunteers have shared their time an skills in areas such as agriculture, communication and transport, education, electoral assistance, engineering, good governance, health including HIV/AIDS, human rights, humanitarian assistance, information and communications technology, as well as poverty reduction.

UNV Volunteers are qualified, experienced and committed men and women of 165 nationalities. UNV Volunteers are at least 25 years old (the average UNV Volunteer is 39; there is no upper age-limit) and has worked in his/her field for more than five years. All UNV Volunteers hold relevant academic degrees or specialized technical training and have a good command of at least one of UNV’s working languages, English, French and Spanish. Knowledge of Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese or Russian is an asset. Read more about the history of the online volunteering service.

Click here for more information on how to become a UNV Volunteer