Hungary: to involve more volunteers into international action

Representatives of United Nations Volunteers (UNV) visited Hungary on 7 March, 2007 where they met ? among others ? Hungarian civil society organisations involved in humanitarian aid and development issues and government officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the meeting Dagmar Schumacher (UNV) told that the volunteers? programme is closely interlinked with the United Nations Development Programme founded in 1970. Its three focal areas include the mobilisation and promotion of volunteering and advocating volunteering in the planning process of development policy. Through the involvement of international volunteers UNV greatly contributes to meet the Millennium Development Goals of the UN. Volunteers serve different functions and provide different services in developing countries e.g. assisting elections or helping after natural disasters and catastrophes. They also serve as contact points in trying to resolve problems of the local community and assist the worldwide campaigns of the UN e.g. in the area of health. UN Volunteers co-operates with many civil society organisations (e.g. the Red Cross), research institutes and academia.

Today there are more than 8000 UN volunteers active in 144 countries of the world. Hungary has share with 3 persons registered through the UN, but the delegation to Budapest hoped that this number will rise shortly. A positive sign that the online voluntary service register 15 Hungarians.

Two-third (64%) of volunteers are men, and their prevalence can be experienced in the areas of peacekeeping and humanitarian aid. The average age of UN volunteers is 39 which is a sign that not only the youth get involved actively into the work.

Dagmar Schumacher praised the Hungarian law on volunteering passed in Parliament in 2005 which might be a practice to follow by other countries, but civil society organisations have also a prominent task to fill in strengthening volunteering in general and mobilise and train volunteers in particular.

UN Volunteers
www.unv.org

UN Online Volunteering Service
www.onlinevolunteering.org

World Volunteer Web
www.worldvolunteerweb.org

Hungarian Volunteersending Foundation
www.hvsf.hu