IVD offers an opportunity for volunteer organizations and individual volunteers to make visible their contributions - at local, national and international levels - to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Over the years, rallies, parades, community volunteering projects, environmental awareness, free medical care and advocacy campaigns have all featured prominently on IVD.

Apart from mobilising thousands of volunteers every year, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme works closely with partners and governments to establish national volunteer programmes to create structures that foster and sustain local volunteerism in countries.  Through the Online Volunteering service volunteers can take action for sustainable human development by supporting the activities of development organizations over the Internet. Every day thousands of people are volunteering, online or on-site, contributing to peace and development and working to achieve the MDGs.

In the lead-up to 5 December 2011, UNV aimed to showcase why volunteering matters and engaged as many UN Volunteers as possible in responding to key volunteering issues. This was done through a mix of discussion-point videos, a photo competition and bold social media engagement, all coming together on a dedicated and interactive webpage. http://volunteeringmatters.unv.org

Virtual participation from all corners of our globe did ‘light up our world’ with photographs and testimonies of ongoing volunteer action. We aimed to collect a photo from every country in the world and snapshots of activities happening on and around 5 December.

The campaign culminated in a striking digital mosaic or ‘snapshot’ of our volunteering world, revealed on 7 December 2011.