Remarks of Resident Coordinator Thailand for UNV Dialogue with UN Regional Directors of Asia and the Pacific

Thank you Shalina for inviting me to share my perspective on the strategic partnership that the UN Country Team has fostered with UNV, over the past year, to support the delivery of the SERP and advance the SDGs. As you often remind me, it is not possible to achieve the SDGs without volunteerism and Thailand is a good case in point.

This year Thailand’s VNR focuses on ‘Volunteerism and Sustainable Development’, which will showcase examples of best practice in not only tackling the pandemic but also bringing to bear the strength of 10 million volunteers panning from the now famous village health volunteers as front line workers, to agriculture volunteers who support data collection, social development volunteers to ensure no one is left behind to marine rangers to protect coastal resources to name just a few.

Today, I want to highlight 3 strategic partnership models where UNV stepped in very rapidly and flexibly, in the first 2 months of my arrival, to support the UNCT’s efforts as it led the response to COVID in partnership with the government. The first model is an innovation, wherein UNV supported the establishment of the UN Volunteer Force - an online volunteer’s platform for Thailand. The second is a more standard model of engagement of making available a UN Volunteer for the RC Office. And the third, is a pilot, to leverage the power of volunteers as researchers to understand illicit trafficking dynamics.

Let me speak to each of these models.

On the Volunteer Force, UNV created a mechanism for Thai nationals in the country, to log in to volunteer for UN agencies based on their areas of expertise and interest. Most of them are young people who are seeking to learn more about the UN and contribute to society. We currently have many volunteers logged on to the system. UNV often tells me, they want to restrict the numbers given that the supply of volunteers far outstrips the demand.

The UNCT has, so far, secured the support of over 100 volunteers, who have worked with different UN agencies, including 5 in my own office, to support graphic design, translation, research, undertake surveys, and outreach. This mechanism has allowed us to quickly mobilize support to deliver on UNs pandemic response and later in the year broaden engagement around raising awareness on the sustainable development agenda.

The Volunteer-Force were instrumental in amplifying the risk communication messaging, including mental wellness, during the early days of the pandemic. Their support allowed the UNCT to reach out to more than 21 million people across the country– which has been one of our highlights.

As I mentioned, mobilizing the Volunteer Force is easy, their support is voluntary and cost-neutral. Very much a win-win offering. I would encourage all of you to capitalize on the Volunteer-Force and generate the demand for their services. This will go a long way in supporting the spirit of volunteerism, which is very much part of the Thai DNA and serves as the glue that holds society together, at the community level.  

I will now move on to my second model, which talks to a more standard engagement strategy, which all of you typically rely on.  UNV deployed one of the 37 national UN Volunteers to the RC office for a period of a year. The UN Volunteer has proved to be a very valuable asset, bringing to bear the perspective of a young person to the UNCT’s communications strategy. This has resulted in the RCO institutionalizing big data analysis to understand narratives on social media platforms to serve as an early warning tool, and strategically connecting to government’s digital assets to amplify UN messaging.

And my third model is a pilot, which leverages the power of volunteers as researchers. This comes from the partnership with UNODC, wherein volunteers are currently undertaking a survey along the border villages of Thailand, to understand issues of illicit trafficking including in drugs, people and wildlife, amongst others. This will deepen the UN’s understanding of community perceptions on illicit trade and local drivers and inform the design of better solutions to counter such cross-border dynamics. I am sure Karen will talk more about this in her intervention.

Last week the SG’s youth envoy in her engagement with the UNCT in Thailand also highlighted the model of getting young people to lead on research, as an example of co-leadership and as a potential pathway to engage as equal partners.

The UNCT will be leveraging much more of this kind of an engagement in the future, as we seek solutions to some of today's development challenges.

To sum up, the UNCT Thailand in 2021 will be seeking UNV’s partnership (1) to scale up the VF on-line platform, (2) secure volunteers to support the agenda of climate change with a specific focus on bio-diversity and scaling up green technology, (3) bring to bear young people’s perspectives to offer digital solutions through big data analysis and research.