Volunteering for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

A/RES/73/140No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 28Social development, published in 2019.

What subjects does this mandate have?

2 topics

Sustainable Development Voluntary Service

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2021.

2021A/76/137Volunteering for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

17 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the report of the Secretary-General on the plan of action to integrate volunteering into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Recognizes the importance of integrating volunteerism, as appropriate, into the planning for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,1 and encourages the United Nations system, civil society and the private sector, in partnership with Member States, to support such efforts and promote a conducive environment for volunteerism and volunteers to enhance the sustainability of development results;

Encourages Governments, in partnership with United Nations entities, volunteer-involving organizations, the private sector, civil society, including academia, and other stakeholders, as appropriate, to integrate volunteerism into national development strategies, plans and policies, United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks or equivalent planning frameworks;

Encourages the meaningful participation and integration of all people, including youth, older persons, women, migrants, refugees, persons with disabilities, minorities and other marginalized groups, into volunteer-involving programmes and projects, with the provision of the appropriate means to leverage the full potential of volunteerism;

Commends the Member States that highlighted the contributions of volunteers to the Sustainable Development Goals in their voluntary national reviews for the high-level political forum on sustainable development held in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and encourages all Member States to increasingly cooperate with volunteer-involving and civil society organizations, to include information on the scale, contribution and impact of volunteerism in future voluntary national reviews and engage volunteers for the monitoring of progress towards achieving the Goals at the national and subnational levels and as part of wider citizen engagement;

Encourages all Member States to invest in measuring the scale and contribution of people’s voluntary efforts, in line with the nineteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians standard on volunteer work and the International Labour Organization Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work, and to collect and utilize high-quality data disaggregated by sex, age and disability to support and integrate volunteerism into national strategies and to measure its impact on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Commends all volunteers globally – formal, informal, community, national, international, online, youth and older volunteers – for their contributions to the delivery of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Requests Member States and the United Nations system to work together with volunteer-involving organizations, including from civil society, to support efforts to enhance the protection, security and well-being of volunteers, calls upon States to create and maintain, in law and in practice, a safe and enabling environment for volunteers, and encourages the adoption of good practices in the promotion, facilitation and, where applicable, management of volunteerism;

Reaffirms the institutional arrangements to implement the plan of action to integrate volunteering into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which are consistent with and complement existing global review mechanisms on the Sustainable Development Goals and build upon and are complemented by independent forums and processes that maximize the participation, voice and contributions of volunteers, and, in particular:

Encourages Member States to continue to work with national and local partners to prepare an analysis of volunteering at the national level before the end of 2018;

Welcomes that national-level analysis will be inputs for regional consultations on volunteering in 2019, and requests that these regional consultations be held under the auspices of the regional commissions of the United Nations in the context of the regional forums on sustainable development, providing an opportunity for Member States and partners to discuss evidence and approaches, identify opportunities for addressing knowledge gaps and ensure, among other things, that national and regional inputs into the high-level political forum on sustainable development take account of volunteer contributions to the 2030 Agenda;

Encourages civil society, academia and the private sector, and especially volunteer-involving organizations, to use all existing forums and processes, in accordance with the rules and mandates of such forums and processes, to increase consultations on trends, evidence and approaches on volunteer contributions to the 2030 Agenda and the plan of action;

Requests the United Nations Volunteers programme, and invites the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, to jointly organize the global technical meeting to be held in 2020 on the theme “Reimagining volunteerism for the 2030 Agenda”, building upon the foundations provided by the processes highlighted above, to further strengthen the engagement and contributions of volunteers with regard to the 2030 Agenda, and requests that this meeting be held as a special event on the margins of the high-level political forum on sustainable development in 2020;

Recognizes the United Nations Volunteers programme as the appropriate United Nations entity to support the implementation of the plan of action, and expects the programme to coordinate the work to consolidate and disseminate good practices and lessons learned, promote successful volunteer actions and ensure that the differentiated impact of volunteers on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is documented as part of regular national policy, planning and implementation practices;

Also recognizes the role of information and communications technologies in expanding innovative forms of volunteering, and encourages Governments, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders to support online volunteering, including United Nations online volunteering that provides inclusive technology-enabled global platforms;

Further recognizes the Special Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Volunteers as the resource enabling the United Nations Volunteers programme to support the implementation of the plan of action, as well as develop initiatives that embed the values of volunteerism in the work of Governments and the United Nations system, and encourages Member States in a position to do so to enhance their contributions to the Fund, thereby ensuring continuing activities;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-sixth session on the implementation of the present resolution, including the plan of action to integrate volunteering into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, under the item entitled “Social development”.

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