State of the World's Volunteerism Report

The Centre for Global Development (CGD) at Northumbria University has been selected as the lead research partner to work with United Nations Volunteers (UNV) on the new State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR 2026). This flagship publication is designed to strengthen the understanding of volunteerism and demonstrate its universality, scope, and reach in the twenty-first century.

The 2026 SWVR "Volunteerism and its measurements" was launched on 5 December 2025, International Volunteer Day, during the opening event of the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development (IVY) 2026, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This global report on volunteer measurement showcases the latest thinking and evidence from around the world on how to account for the contributions of volunteers and volunteerism to peace and development. The global impact of volunteers and their significance to peace and development worldwide remains largely unquantified, with qualitative measurement often being small-scale and isolated from wider debates.

The focus and theme of the 2026 SWVR responds to the call for improved data, tools, and frameworks for measuring volunteering, ensuring that volunteers’ roles are recognised and better integrated into policy and practice. Measuring volunteering means different things to different people and organisations around the world, depending on their specific contexts, interests and approaches to promoting peace and development. The report explains historical challenges and provides a forward-looking analysis of inclusive and innovative approaches to measuring volunteering that can enable a better understanding of how volunteers drive change worldwide. It includes practical examples from governments, organisations, and volunteers themselves, offering actionable tools and insights for diverse and inclusive measurement of the impacts of volunteering.

This is the fifth edition of this global report, regularly published by UNV since 2011, focusing on different themes. The first SWVR edition in 2011 explored the theme ‘Universal Values for Global Well-being’, highlighting the significant social and economic contribution of volunteers to development. The 2015 SWVR on ‘Transforming Governance’ emphasised the roles of volunteering in helping governments fulfil their duties and responsibilities through accountability and monitoring mechanisms. In 2018, the SWVR on ‘Volunteerism and Community Resilience’ focused on how communities come together to develop collective resources to cope with shocks and stresses, particularly in contexts where government provision is limited. The last report, published in 2022, focused on the theme ‘Building Equal and Inclusive Societies’ and analysed how volunteers and governments work together to create more inclusive structures and mechanisms that are fit for the development challenges of the 21st century.

Northumbria’s CGD research team played a key role in the development of this UNV-led report, working with a consortium of global partners to ensure diverse perspectives and voices were reflected throughout the thematic chapters of the report. The University of Pretoria led the development of the Global Index of Volunteer Engagement (GIVE) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) provided new global estimates of volunteer work.

The 2026 State of the World's Volunteerism Report can be accessed here: https://www.unv.org/swvr

To find out more, please contact Prof Matt Baillie Smith and Dr Bianca Fadel (Northumbria University), or Emiliya Asadova and Tapiwa Kamuruko (UNV).