UNV Youth Volunteering Strategy 2014-2017 - Empowering Youth through Volunteerism

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme youth volunteering strategy, Empowering Youth through Volunteerism, outlines UNV’s principles and approaches to strengthening youth volunteerism for global peace and sustainable human development. It proposes specific mechanisms for UNV’s engagement with youth in line with its organizational mandate and comparative advantage, and in consideration of the roles of partner organizations. This strategy builds upon this renewed mandate for youth volunteering. It was developed as a result of research, literature reviews and analyses of youth policies and practices, as well as consultations that included online surveys and in-depth interviews with a wide range of stakeholders. A consultation workshop, held during 11-12 October 2012 in Bonn, Germany, invited representatives of United Nations entities, civil society, youth organisations and governments to share their experiences, recommendations and opinions, and these provided a substantive basis for the development of UNV’s youth volunteering strategy. The strategy considers the need to strengthen the capacities of young people, implement better management of youth volunteering programmes, generate and share relevant knowledge, and improve the measurement of the contribution of youth volunteerism to global peace and sustainable human development.