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Mobilizing the commitment of volunteers to ensure that we leave no one behind
Friday, 15 July 2016
1:15 PM - 2:30 PM
Conference room 12

Side Event

Documentation
The 2030 Agenda will only be meaningful if it is relevant to and owned by the people who are most often left behind. This side event will demonstrate how volunteers can play an important role in facilitating active engagement of communities, in partnership with their governments, in the implementation and monitoring of the 2030 Agenda.

Acknowledging that traditional means of implementation need to be complemented by participatory mechanisms that genuinely facilitate a people-centered, inclusive approach, the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda explicitly name Volunteer Groups as key actors in their own right among the means of implementation. Volunteers are uniquely positioned to reach out to community members who are often marginalized, create a greater awareness of the SDGs, and build their capacities to engage in community action in support of activities and efforts to build resilience and participate in their government’s plans for the achievement of the SDGs.

This event will provide innovative examples of how governments can support volunteers in localizing the 2030 Agenda. This entails leveraging local expertise through participatory forms of planning, prioritization, data collection and monitoring. Involving all community members throughout the entire process, from the initial planning stages, when governments and institutions are aligning their national plans with the 2030 Agenda, to the reporting, creates local ownership, which is critical for a successful implementation of the SDGs.

Volunteering, when well supported, is a powerful mechanism for promoting social inclusion throughout the world, while facilitating engagement of all community members to become drivers of sustainable development action. Combining the action of international, national and community volunteers provides a much-needed resource that can increase outreach and multiply results across all goal areas.

Organizers: Co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development France and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Independent State of Samoa and organized by the Volunteer Groups Alliance, Cuso International, Commission on Volunteer Service and Action, FK Norway, France Volontaires, IAVE, International Forum for Volunteering in Development, UN Volunteers, Uniterra, and VSO
United Nations