UNV WEBINAR ON YOUTH VOLUNTEERING FOR EMPLOYABILITY AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

On 21 June, Professor Matt Baillie Smith joined a panel of researchers and practitioners mobilised by the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV) for a policy-oriented dialogue on youth volunteering for employability and skills development.

The panel discussion was organised by the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV), and facilitated by Dr Tapiwa Kamuruko, UNV Policy Specialist and Team Lead on Evidence and Knowledge Brokering. The online event was opened by Ms. Kyoko Yokosuka, UNV Deputy Executive Coordinator, and attended by over 140 participants who actively contributed to the discussion.

During the panel, Professor Baillie Smith joined Mr. Niall O’Higgins, Senior Economist at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and Mr. Waseem Carrim, CEO of the National Youth Development Agency in South Africa, to share experiences from diverse perspectives on the impacts of volunteering in relation to youth employability and skills development. While Mr. O’Higgins presented key insights from his work “On the design of volunteer programmes to facilitate the entry and re-entry of young people into work”, Mr. Carrim shared examples from his work at the National Youth Development Agency in South Africa, particularly in terms of the work to bridge existing skills gap with job market demands for enabling local ecosystems to facilitate youth self-employment.

In his presentation “Volunteering, Youth Employability and Skills Development: Research and Evidence”, Professor Baillie Smith shared findings from the RYVU project questioning the presumed linear relationship between volunteering, skills and employment. Evidence suggests that not everyone can access the volunteering opportunities that lead to skills development, and also that the lack of skills and qualifications are ranked highly amongst key barriers to volunteering. Key recommendations from the research data discussed in the webinar included the need for volunteer-involving organisations to prioritise:

• Fair and inclusive volunteering recruitment policies;

• Increasing investment in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to reduce reliance on volunteering;

• Mechanisms that enable all volunteers to shape the development and management of volunteering;

• Inclusive terminologies for recognising diverse volunteering experiences and their impacts;

• More robust evidence on the roles of volunteering on young people’s struggles for lives and livelihoods in diverse settings.

You can read a full summary and the online recording of the webinar here.