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2 December 2021<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Excellencies,<\/p>\n Ladies and gentlemen,<\/p>\n I am honoured to join you today in celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Volunteers, and to recognize the 20th Anniversary of the International Year of Volunteerism.<\/p>\n I am pleased to co-organize this event with Brazil, Japan, and the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Volunteers, under the themes, Volunteerism for building equal and inclusive societies.<\/p>\n This theme succinctly captures the soul of volunteerism and conveys the power of volunteerism as a mechanism for social inclusion.<\/p>\n At its core, volunteerism promotes solidarity, social cohesion, and integration.<\/p>\n It empowers both the provider and the host. It is underpinned by compassion and cooperation.<\/p>\n As the work of Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵV and other organizations has demonstrated, volunteerism strengthens sustainable development, and offers a wealth of opportunities for the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.<\/p>\n As stated in the 2021 World Volunteerism Report, \u201cVolunteerism, in its various forms, has often been positioned as a universal asset which can help shape, localize and achieve development goals.\u201d<\/p>\n Ladies and gentlemen,<\/p>\n Everywhere, and every day, young people are acting on issues that affect them, including the climate crisis, conflicts, disasters, gender inequalities, governance failures, or lack of quality education, health, and decent jobs for youth.<\/p>\n Youth volunteers are often involved in bringing together different components of social action, combining direct action and service provision with online and in-person advocacy and representation to solve challenges.<\/p>\n Volunteers build the resilience of communities and help to develop a sense of ownership of development interventions.<\/p>\n I\u2019m pleased to say that one of my Senior Advisers in the OPGA Communications Team was a former Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Volunteer.<\/p>\n I am even more pleased to say that through my Presidency of Hope, volunteerism will be recognized for the core value that it is, one that contributes to progress against the five Rays of Hope that we have prioritized.<\/p>\n My Dear Friends,<\/p>\n The General Assembly, in its resolution 73\/140, encouraged the meaningful inclusion of all people through volunteering, including youth, older persons, women, migrants, refugees, persons with disabilities and all marginalized groups.<\/p>\n Expanding opportunities for all types of people to participate in development processes also requires addressing the risks that volunteers face, particularly those concerning the security and well-being of volunteers.<\/p>\n Going forward, I would encourage Member States to promote a life-cycle approach to volunteering that can mobilize everyone, everywhere, to meet the ambitions of the decade of action.<\/p>\n Member States should place added emphasis on grassroots and informally organized volunteer groups who are often at the frontline of community responses.<\/p>\n Leadership opportunities for women and marginalized groups can be scaled up to support national gender equality priorities through volunteering.<\/p>\n Ladies and Gentlemen,<\/p>\n Resolution 75\/233 recognizes volunteerism as a powerful and cross-cutting means of implementing the Agenda 2030.<\/p>\n Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Volunteers remains the appropriate United Nations entity to mobilize volunteers in support of the United Nations development system, including to promote South-South cooperation and to leave no one behind.<\/p>\n I would call upon all United Nations country teams to deepen their engagement with volunteers as essential partners in realizing the SDGs and reflect the distinct contributions of volunteering in Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks and country programmes documents of United Nations entities.<\/p>\n To conclude, let us celebrate the success and efforts of volunteers. Let us empower them to do more. And let us fully utilize this valuable resource for our common well-being<\/p>\n I thank you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Remarks of H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid – Commemorative Meeting to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Volunteers (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵV) Programme and the 20th anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers \u201cVolunteerism for building equal and inclusive societies\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"committee-meeting":[],"class_list":["post-253562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speeches","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n