United Nations Volunteers Volunteerism for Development in the context of CBA

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United Nations VolunteersVolunteerism for
Development in the context of CBA
Adeline Aubry CBA Volunteerism Community
Adaptation Specialist United Nations Development
Programme June 2009
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UNV support to CBA

• Is funded by the Japanese Trust Fund (1,000,000
  USD) and the UNV Special Voluntary Fund (552,909
  USD).
• Is providing highly motivated and skilled human
  resource in the 7 countries of partnership.
• Is fully integrated into the UNDP-GEF CBA project
  (mainstreaming vs. parallel).
• Is strengthening existing project in terms of
• communities mobilization, voluntary contribution
  and ownership
• partners capacity building
• Outcome 1, output1.2/1.3 and Outcome 2, output 2.2

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as a UNV volunteer, you are the best ambassador
to promote volunteerism

• Promoting volunteerism is an integral part of
  every UNV volunteer assignment.
• While every type of UNV appointment is an
  opportunity to promote volunteerism, different
  positions ensure diverse receptions.
• Reflecting how you can help implement
  volunteerism is likely to make your assignment
  even more rewarding and productive.
• Consider your TORs What actions could you
  undertake as part of your assignment in order to
  promote volunteerism for peace and development?

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volunteerism in your CBA assignment

• Complementary to the support you are giving to
  the NC in the general implementation of CBA
  project, you will considerably contribute in the
  following activities
• Be the country focal point for mainstreaming
  volunteerism in CBA project, and for sharing
  knowledge related to volunteerism.
• Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
  contribution and ownership.
• Support meaningful participation and inclusion of
  the most vulnerable people in CBA project
  development-implementation-monitoring.
• Facilitate capacity building of NGOs, CBOs, VIOs
  partners.
• Promote, give visibility and measure voluntary
  contribution to adaptation.

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country focal point for mainstreaming
volunteerism in CBA and sharing knowledge
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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• Basic principles
• Volunteerism has the potential to move
  disadvantaged populations away from being passive
  victims of climate impacts towards becoming
  engaged actors in adapting their lives and
  livelihoods.
• Community based approach is a way of working in
  partnership with the community during all stages
  of project cycle.
• It recognizes the knowledge, capacities, skills
  and resources of the community, and builds on
  these to support the communitys own priorities.
• Community based approach requires that we
  recognize our role as facilitators and the
  temporary nature of our presence.
• You have a real power to motivate, mobilize,
  encourage and inspire!

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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• Take time to go in the field to build a cultural
  understanding/respect with the communities.
• Listen carefully to community members instead of
  informing and deciding for people.
• Explain with patience, accessible and culturally
  adapted words the reasons of our partnership and
  the technical information.
• Build bridge between all stakeholders
  (communities, authorities, civil society and UN)
  clarify respective expectations constantly
  facilitate the dialogue ensure quality and
  relevance of information/trainings, etc.
• Communities will mobilize themselves when there
  is trust and confidence, and when they understand
  and see benefits emerging from the process.

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• Community mobilization
• through voluntary action
• must be stimulated
• and encouraged.
• What would be your plan to develop capacities
  for volunteerism at the community level?

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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• Plan to develop capacities for volunteerism at
  the community level
• Get in contact with the whole community and build
  relation.
• Build an understanding of the social and power
  dynamics in the community. It may reveal
  obstacles or opportunities to mobilization.
• Assess the already existing voluntary mechanisms
  and build on them identify areas of improvement
  to reinforce, stimulate and organize them.
• Identify leaders (e.g. religious, teachers,
  doctors, seniors and young citizens, women)
  convince them of the added-value of volunteerism
  for the sustainable development of their
  community, and ask them to advocate and volunteer
  themselves to play a model role.
• Organize local-level events to sensitize the
  whole community about the benefits of
  volunteerism outline powerful examples of
  success of community action, and ensure that
  awareness sessions are attractive, utilizing
  visual, audio and practical participatory tools.

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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• Assess on a participative way the community needs
  and vulnerabilities. Identify the added value of
  volunteerism to fill some of these gaps.
• Establish community volunteer task forces for
  identified sectors. People should have the
  possibility to chose in which activity they want
  to volunteer in order to ensure motivation.
• Enhance visibility and recognition of volunteers
  (e.g. badges).
• Organize training sessions to facilitate the
  capacity of task forces. Constantly highlight the
  benefits of volunteerism, and that volunteers
  represent values (such as solidarity and free
  will).
• Accompany task forces on the job to further
  strengthen their capacities.
• Assess periodically gaps in terms of
  knowledge-attitude-practice, and implement
  refresher trainings accordingly.
• Organize regular awareness events with whole
  community to enhance solidarity and social
  cohesion, including presentation of task forces
  work, and distribution of awards/certificates to
  get public recognition.

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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership
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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• What are the main factors that can facilitate or
  prevent people from engaging themselves in
  voluntary activities for the good of their
  community?

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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• Some factors that facilitate people to engage
  themselves
• Long tradition of volunteerism
• Visibility and recognition of volunteers
  contribution to the society
• Positive past experience having proved
  added-value of volunteerism
• Policy and legislation which establish an
  enabling environment
• Existing social cohesion
• Peer pressure
• Incentives
• Etc.

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Enhance communities mobilization, voluntary
contribution ownership

• Some factors that prevent people from engaging
  themselves
• Political unrest and security (e.g. civil wars,
  riots, kidnappings , etc. impeding on freedom of
  movement and collaborative action)
• Distrust among different groups
• Attitudinal barrier (e.g. discrimination, lack of
  self-esteem)
• Misperceptions about other actors
• Lack of information
• Poverty
• Hopeless
• Dependency syndrome
• Etc.

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Enhance participation inclusion of vulnerable
people

• Community can be described as a group of people
  that recognizes itself or is recognized by
  outsiders as sharing common cultural, religious
  or other social features, backgrounds and
  interests, and that forms a collective identity
  with shared goals.
• However, what is externally perceived as a
  community might in fact be an entity with many
  sub-groups or communities (divided by clans,
  castes, social class, language, religion).
• A community might be inclusive and protective of
  its members but it might also be socially
  controlling, making it difficult for sub-groups
  (minorities, marginalized groups) to express
  their opinions and claim their rights.
• Without broad participation, only a few will
  decide for all, and those few might control
  information and resources this can lead to abuse
  of power.

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Enhance participation inclusion of vulnerable
people

• Do not view a local community as one single
  entity it can consist of many different groups
  with varied opinions and facing various issues.

• What would you do
• to promote inclusive participation of
  marginalized groups
• in community development?

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Enhance participation inclusion of vulnerable
people

• To promote inclusive participation of
  marginalized groups in community development
• Requires preparatory work to understand the
  composition of the community and identify
  marginalized groups.
• Identify community leaders and convince them to
  lead the inclusive action.
• Implement awareness raising sessions on human
  rights and inclusive approach outline the
  benefits of inclusiveness for the whole
  community.
• Ensure that the whole community is represented in
  all project activities. Emphasis should be put on
  the participation of the most vulnerable groups,
  who usually have no voice. Be careful that people
  may be included, but not actively participating!
• Meaningful participation will often require
  special efforts to ensure that those
  traditionally marginalized groups are given
  support and specific opportunities to contribute.
  Trainings have to be tailored in accordance to
  needs linked to the marginalization.
• Document and disseminate success stories.

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner
NGOs, CBOs, VIOs

• Barriers to adaptative capacities of communities
  can be of technical or institutional nature
  (e.g. community organization).
• UNV will facilitate the capacity building of CBA
  partners in
• community mobilization and volunteer management
• organizational development
• UNVs expertise is complementary to UNDPs
  expertise in adaptation and climate change.
• CBA projects are short in time for
  implementation, therefore capacity building is
  challenging, but even more crucial for
  sustainability.

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner NGOs,
CBOs, VIOs

• According with your experience
• working with organizations at the grassroots
  level,
• what could be their needs in terms of capacity
  building?
• (in complementary to technical skills in
  environment)

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner NGOs,
CBOs, VIOs

• Organizational development may include
• project cycle management
• reporting
• record keeping, meeting management, time
  management
• human resource management, roles
  responsibilities
• financial management, funds raising, marketing
• advocacy, communication, public relations,
  networking
• leadership
• Etc.

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner NGOs,
CBOs, VIOs

• Community mobilization
• Communication how to communicate at community
  level rules and channels (e.g. approach firstly
  senior, religious leaders).
• Motivation mechanisms mechanisms to raise the
  community motivation, but also to keep it steady
  (e.g. awards).
• Collective Action understanding the problem of
  collective action and ways to promote it (e.g.
  awareness raising distribution of medals/caps
  possibility to speak at the radio).
• Sensitization session on inclusion and human
  rights.
• Etc.

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner NGOs,
CBOs, VIOs

• Volunteer management
• Briefing sensitization/introductory training on
  volunteerism.
• Management style flat management structure might
  be preferable as it encourages taking
  responsibilities and is less authoritarian.
• Participative tools encourage team work,
  knowledge sharing, peer management.
• Communication positive, encouraging and
  supportive (appreciation and recognition are
  essential).
• Reporting might in most cases need to be very
  informal (e.g. exchange once a month in a focus
  group).
• Training provide access to trainings if possible
  to increase quality and foster motivation (e.g.
  workshops, exposure visits).
• Measuring and Managing Performance.
• Etc.

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner NGOs,
CBOs, VIOs

• What would be your capacity building strategy to
  get maximum results with the limited resources
  (in terms of human resources and funds) and the
  given situation? (high number of partners, with
  different capacities, not coming on board at the
  same time, geographic scale, time
  constraints...)

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Facilitate capacity building of our partner NGOs,
CBOs, VIOs

• Capacity development strategy
• Training Needs Analysis (TNA) of partners.
• Training plan and generic Training-of-Trainers
  (ToT).
• ToT, national-level training events, local-level
  workshops, short awareness-raising sessions,
  provision of material support, exchanging
  information and good trainers.
• Needs-based tailored refresher trainings and
  continuous on-the-job training.

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Promote, give visibility and measure voluntary
contribution to adaptation

• Understand added-value and contribution of
  volunteerism in the terms of adaptation to
  climate change
• Support the development of a methodology to
  measure communities voluntary contributions to
  adaptation collect data, test the methodology,
  train partners, disseminate it, etc..
• Include volunteerism in documents whenever
  pertinent (e.g. progress reports).
• Capture lessons learned and best practices on
  volunteer aspects (e.g. how to engage communities
  in adaptation practices).
• Assist with the production and dissemination of
  CBA knowledge management products and
  information.
• Organize local-level campaigns and events.

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"Go to people, live with them, love them, learn
from them. Start with what they know, build
with what they have, and work with the best
leaders, so when the work is done, people can
say we did this ourselves." Lao Tzu
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thank you
Adeline Aubry CBA Volunteerism Community
Adaptation Specialist United Nations Development
Programme June 2009