Peacekeeping is a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace. Peacekeepers - soldiers and military officers, civilian police officers and civilian personnel, many of them volunteers, from many countries - monitor and observe peace processes that emerge in post-conflict situations and assist ex-combatants to implement the peace agreements they have signed.

Assistance from volunteers comes in many forms, including confidence-building measures, power-sharing arrangements, electoral support, strengthening the rule of law, and economic and social development. As of March 2006, in addition to military and police personnel, more than 4,800 international civilian personnel, 1,600 UN Volunteers and over 10,000 local civilian personnel worked in UN peacekeeping missions.

Here we highlight volunteers’ involvement in sustaining peace and building confidence in regions in conflict.

If you have any news, press releases, events, documents, links or other information resources related to volunteers' role in peacekeeping, send them to us at info@worldvolunteerweb.org and we will feature them here.

20 February 2012
IYV+10 - the General Assembly Resolution  16 August 2011
Editorial: Humanitarian volunteers: making change happen  13 June 2007
Aid agencies pledge continued efforts despite deaths of volunteers  12 April 2007
Youth volunteers restore hope in Lebanon  06 March 2007
Volunteers fight crime in South Africa by Sipho Masondo