Active Volunteerism for Sustainable Development
“We must work closely together to make this year a year of global action, that will be remembered as the dawn of a new era of sustainable development.” UN Foundations
Volunteering is a mechanism that develops people’s awareness and ownership of salient issues and motivates them to make sustainable changes based on solidarity, collaborative efforts, and mutual accountability.
Active volunteering raises public consciousness and commitment to national planning, implementation, and evaluation of Sustainable Development Goals.
The Sustainable Development Goals emerged sequel to the 2015 collaborations of the United Nations with governments, businesses, media, higher learning institutions, and local NGOs from 194 countries. SDGs aim to improve the world’s standard of living by 2030.
Some of these SDGs include Eliminating Poverty, Erasing Hunger, Establishing Good Health and Well-Being, Providing Quality Education, Enforcing Gender Equality, and Improving Clean Water and Sanitation.
Active Collaboration Among Volunteers for SDGs
The collaboration and active participation of volunteers in implementing SDGs are essential to attaining the Sustainable Development goals. Specific roles include:
- Acting as mechanisms for platforms of interaction
Voluntary groups serve as viable front liners in interactions on national agendas, government interventions in developmental issues, and grassroots activism for concrete and measurable actions.
2. Connecting Local Ownership to National Authorities
Volunteers are catalysts to enhance public-private initiatives in all-inclusive national development. Building on people’s creativity in all development investments will help them create and implement new national change policies.
3. Extending Platforms for Women and Youth Participation
With the influence of volunteers, women can occupy positions outside their traditional norms, make authorities accountable, and ensure their prompt responses to the communities’ needs.
Youths are also actively involved in SDGs to ensure societal stability, social integration, and a sense of belonging and build their capacities for personal growth and value creation.
4. Evaluation of NEW SDGs
Beyond implementing the new SDGs, volunteers can also play a substantial role in enhancing the new SDG framework’s accountability. We can do this by capturing quantitative and qualitative data at the local level to evaluate the project’s progress and implementation.
For instance, organizations can deploy voluntary specialists to help national-level machinery, such as national statistical offices. As they align their strategies to the new framework, they develop new methods to capture the data required to assess progress on the goals.
Together We Can, Through Volunteering
On the whole, volunteers have an outstanding record of modeling attitudes and propelling behavior for sustainable changes.
Concerted international, national, community volunteers and virtual volunteers have strengthened international exchanges, stifled inequality issues, and enhanced South-South regional cooperation and grassroots/community participation in the SDGs.
Every citizen should be an ideal volunteer to promote the SDGs. As the nation’s noble citizens, we must collaboratively take deep reflections on infusing volunteering interventions into the policies and practices at the national and global scenes.
With combined efforts, we can provide regular feedback on the credible contributions of volunteers. Reports on volunteers’ participation can be presented at top-level political forums on SDGs under the auspices of Economic and Social Councils. Through this, the SDGs’ teams will establish a more robust partnership role with volunteer groups.
Together, we can contribute to the achievement of SDGs by:
· Raising public sensitization, local campaigns, and creative strategies on the 2030 Agenda
· Providing a progressive environment for volunteerism as
a civic right
· Modeling behaviors to motivate others to contribute to SDGs locally.
· Developing a patriotic spirit, vast knowledge, and sense of responsibility for our local and global community
Together, we can achieve what’s next in the implementation of The Sustainable Development Goals.
No man is an island of knowledge. Beyond talking about our perspectives, we must seek to understand others’ views to find common ground.
Effective decision-making in modern-day society cannot thrive amidst divergent opinions, political unfairness, lack of solidarity, mutual trust, and cooperation. Rather than wallow in vain imaginations and illusions of a better future Nigeria, we must consciously shape that future into reality.
It is about time organizations select and deploy volunteers whose voices will find expression and advocate for the privileges that volunteering offers.
With a unanimous stance, collaborative efforts, and shared understanding, we can actualize sustainable nation-building goals.
And that’s because together we can, through volunteering!
Today, we appreciate our millennials and donors for their inestimable efforts towards a sustainable environment.
