United Nations
Development Programme

Plot 15B Clement Hill Road

P.O Box 7184

Kampala, Uganda

Tel: (256) 414-233440/1/2/5

Fax: (256) 414-344801

Email: registry.ug@undp.org

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme is the volunteer arm of the United Nations. It was created by the UN General Assembly in 1971 to serve as an operational partner in development cooperation at the request of UN member states. It reports to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and works through UNDP's Country Offices around the world.

UNV PROGRAMME MISSION STATEMENT

United Nations Volunteers is the United Nations organization that supports sustainable human development globally through the promotion of volunteerism and the mobilization of volunteers. It serves the causes of peace and development through enhancing opportunities for participation by all peoples. It is universal, inclusive and embraces volunteer action in all its diversity. It values free will, commitment, engagement and solidarity, which are the foundations of volunteerism.

UNV PROGRAMME IN UGANDA

The UNV Programme in Uganda started in 1983 with the first volunteers deployed under the World Food Programme (WFP) relief projects in the north-eastern part of the country. In 1986, the UNV Programme recruited its first UNV Programme Officer for better coordination of programme activities following the effort to assist the country, which had just emerged from a civil war, in its reconstruction and rehabilitation. Twenty-four years later, the UNV Programme has grown from the initial volunteer that was deployed, to the current 70 UNV volunteers, 23 of whom are international specialists, 2 international interns, 34 national specialists, and 11 national fieldworkers. There is an almost fifty-fifty gender balance in the entire population of UNV volunteers in the country.

UNV PROGRAMME PARTNERSHIPS IN UGANDA

The UNV volunteers serving in Uganda are deployed with various UN Agencies supporting the course of government in various areas of practice with the overall goal of achieving peace and development agenda.

UNDP has a good number of UNV volunteers attached to its programme units that focus on providing the government with policy advisory services in good governance, crisis prevention and recovery, and poverty reduction and environment conservation. Some are serving within UNDP Country Office while the larger group is deployed to various government ministries and departments that include Planning and Economic Development; Gender, Labour and Social Development; Inspectorate of Government; Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), as well as Amnesty Commission (AC). In the year 2006, UNDP Uganda established a Service Centre and has 1 international UNV volunteer deployed to support the UNDP-Government of Uganda projects’ ever increasing procurement needs.

In addition there are two more programmes that operate under UNDP that have recently embraced the services of fully-funded international UNV volunteers. UNIFEM Country Programme has a Sex and Gender-Based Violence Specialist who has since been transferred to Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to support Government’s broader SGBV Programme with UNDP, UNIFEM, UNFPA and UNICEF, and he Millennium Village has a Participatory Trainer.

One UNV's experience in the UNDP Uganda Country Office, click here the full article

International Volunteer Day (IVD) 2008 celebrations

Click here to learn more on the UNV Programme in Uganda