By Kristalina Georgieva - 18th November 2011
Wherever European volunteers engage in the future they will be the visible face of EU humanitarian assistance
Kristalina Georgieva
Europe’s new volunteers should respond to real needs and complement existing schemes and structures, writes Kristalina Georgieva.
Europe cares: it is no coincidence that the European Union, member states and the commission, taken as a single unit, is the largest provider of humanitarian aid worldwide.
Now there’s a new kid on the block: a European voluntary humanitarian aid corps. The Lisbon treaty put the ball in the court of the commission to establish a body “for joint contributions from young Europeans to the humanitarian aid operations of the Union”.
When I took office as the first European commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response in February 2010, I made this one of my priorities.
I was also careful not to rush into proposals for new legislation. I preferred to consult stakeholders first as well as to review all the existing volunteering platforms. In Europe, volunteering is in our DNA, so it comes at no surprise that there are many well-established schemes.
Before proposing a new structure, I want to make sure that we avoid any possible duplication. What I want is for a new European voluntary service to complement all those existing voluntary schemes and structures.
Our new volunteers should respond to real needs and in order to do that we need demand to be driven from the grassroots upwards.
I am delighted to say that the parliament has been a strong supporter in this respect. In September, it adopted a written declaration on the establishment of the corps which contains the same conclusions.
Brought forward on the initiative of members of the parliament Georgios Koumoutsakos, Hélène Flautre, Marian Harkin and Vittorio Prodi, the written declaration emphasises that the service should be demand-driven and needs-based, that security must be of paramount importance and that the identification, selection, training and deployment of volunteers should be the key elements of the voluntary scheme.
This is key to ensuring that the right people are in the right place at the right time and that EU volunteers can make a positive difference to relief operations.
This year is the European year of volunteering and the corps recently took a step closer to reality with the launch of some pilot projects in September.
Three key partner organisations of the commission’s humanitarian aid and civil protection department (ECHO) were selected to run the pilots: Save the Children (UK), the French Red Cross and Voluntary Service Overseas/VSO (UK) with other partner organisations in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Romania also participating.
In the pilot phase, the first European humanitarian volunteers undergo extensive training to develop the right skills. Since mid-October, the first volunteers have been deployed in countries which receive EU humanitarian aid. These include Haiti and Niger.
Various options for the final shape of the corps are on the table. The pilot projects in 2011 will test some of these, focusing on disaster risk reduction and post-disaster recovery. A public consultation indicated that these volunteers could make the biggest difference in areas such as local capacity-building, back-office support and new instruments, such as online volunteering.
We will launch a second round of pilot projects in early 2012 – and the dimension of “civil protection” operations in humanitarian aid could be one of the features to be tested to extend possibly the scope of the corps.
So, on the basis of what we learn from the pilot schemes we will define the structure and role of the future youth European service and propose EU legislation in 2012.
One thing is for sure: saving lives is a life-changing experience. Wherever European volunteers engage in the future they will be the visible face of EU humanitarian assistance. They will come back with valuable experience that will benefit the humanitarian community as well as themselves. They will become more responsible and compassionate citizens.
Volunteering has a high appeal among Europeans – an EU-wide survey in 2010 showed that one in three young Europeans (30 per cent) is engaged in voluntary actions and keen to make a difference to society. An even higher number of European citizens – 34 per cent – believe that “solidarity and humanitarian aid” play the most important role in volunteering.
So we know already that we care. Now we have a new opportunity to go further and say, “We care, we act.”
