Photo: National UN Volunteer Haya Al-Jamal (standing), participates in an event for World Children's Day in Jordan. She is a Field Monitor with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Jordan. Haya supports the agency’s flagship Makani programme, through site visits, multi-sector referral services and feedback collected from refugee and Jordanian students. The referrals and feedback helped UNICEF reach malnourished and refugee students with a history of trauma.
© UNICEF, 2019
Host a UN Volunteer
UN entities mobilize UN Volunteers in support of their peace, development and humanitarian interventions and delivery. The added value of UN Volunteers to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development is unrivalled.
In this section, we provide host entity representatives with guidance on hosting UN Volunteers, including our UNV solutions, recruitment, financial arrangements and management resources.
If you would like to proceed directly, then click to:
To host an on-site UN Volunteer, the UN partner should contact your UNV field or regional office. The first steps in the recruitment process are for the UN partner to:
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create your own Description of Assignment (DOA) that attract the best candidates (see standard DOA templates),
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confirm funding arrangements for the UN Volunteer assignment by providing a financial authorization to UNV, and
- participate in interviewing submitted candidates and inform us of your selection (use our simplified candidate assessment form).
For further guidance for UN partners on the recruitment process and on UN Volunteer supervision, kindly visit sections on Recruitment, Managing and Transition.
UNV enables flexible talent solutions to the needs of UN entities, offering different categories of UN Volunteers through well-establish legal and administrative framework of the Unified Conditions of Service. UN partners can mobilize different categories of UN Volunteers together to gain maximum benefit from their combined experience and expertise.
- People with critical skills, including specialized in-demand knowledge, professional expertise and technological acumen, often cultivated over many years;
Sample DOA Template International UN Expert Volunteer (EN) Summary of COS (EN)
Sample DOA Template National UN Expert Volunteer (EN) Summary of COS (EN)
- Bring local expertise to development and peace solutions, recruited locally with no experience required;
- Work where they live on projects that impact their own community;
- Can be mobilized in large numbers, bringing direct impact and resilience building to UN initiatives;
- Combined with the expertise of other onsite UN Volunteer categories and Online Volunteers, offer great potential to transfer knowledge and build capacity; and
- Are best coordinated and managed via a UN Community Volunteer Coordinator, who can facilitate recruitment, onboarding, learning, contract management and volunteer wellbeing.
Sample DOA UN Community Volunteer (EN)
Community Volunteers - summary of COS (EN)
Sample DOA UN Community Volunteers Coordinator (EN)
Sample DOA UN Specialist Coordinator (EN)
Is a special initiative exclusively available for UNHCR, tailored to the specific legal, socio-economic, and cultural context of refugee populations;
- Facilitates the employment and engagement of refugees in their host country with the aim to empower them and build on their competencies and skills; and
- Caters to vulnerable refugee populations who, due to their precarious status, are often shut out from participation in the labor market.
Refugee UN Volunteer Conditions of Service (UNHCR) (EN)
Guidance Note (EN)
Offline UN Volunteer Registration Form (EN))
Sample DOA Template Refugee UN Volunteer (EN)
- Ideally suited to areas needing innovation, community outreach, youth engagement, social media or work with marginalized communities;
UN University Volunteers (National or International) are a special segment of UN Youth Volunteers and serve on assignments of 3-6 months.
UN Youth Volunteers and UN University Volunteers have demonstrated their commitment to global peace and sustainable development through academic, extra-curricular and volunteer activities.
International Youth Volunteers - Summary of COS (EN)
National Youth Volunteers - Summary of COS (EN)
Sample DOA Template (EN)
- Contribute their skills and talents from wherever they are, working from a computer, tablet or mobile phone;
- Help UN entities, governments and civil society organizations achieve their goals by completing concrete, time-bound tasks/opportunities in support of peace and development; and
- Come from a broad range of backgrounds and can help with any task that meets the service’s opportunity criteria (typically, tasks relate to writing and editing, art and design, translation, outreach and advocacy or research).
NB. UNV manages the Online Volunteering service, a platform and provides expert advice to help UN entities translate their needs into conducive online volunteering opportunities. Online Volunteers are not “UN” Volunteers and do not benefit from this status. They, together with all users of the Online Volunteering website, are governed by the Terms of Use.
Please see a summary of host entity role and responsibilities in hosting UN Volunteers during the various stages of their assignment. (EN)