The United Nations has designated 2026 as the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development (IVY 2026). As the Irish Association of Development Workers and Volunteers, Comhlámh has over 50 years’ experience of supporting volunteers to influence long-term, solidarity-led change. We welcome the UN’s recognition of volunteers and the unique and vital role they play, at a time of crisis, uncertainty and intersecting global challenges.
At the same time, we are aware of the increasingly challenging circumstances in which volunteers may be active. Around the world, we see the persecution of search-and-rescue volunteers, the targeting of humanitarian volunteers in war and genocide zones, and the silencing of solidarity responders and activists. IVY 2026 offers an opportunity to draw attention to this changing context and to consider how best we, through values-led volunteering, can develop the competencies, stamina and dispositions needed to take ongoing collective action for a more just and sustainable future.
Comhlámh was happy to launch IVY 2026 in Ireland (watch the video below), with events marking International Volunteer Day. We held a workshop with a keynote address by Dr Chris Millora, author of the Global Call to Action on the Future of Volunteering and Global Insights Paper. The event also featured powerful talks from Palestinian Service Civil International (SCI) volunteer, Alaa Amro; Nina Arwitz, head of Volunteer Ireland; and James O’Brien, Director of the Global Volunteer Forum. Over forty members of our network joined us from across the island of Ireland (including Volunteer Now), bringing their energy and perspectives to discussions on what we need to do, collectively, to create an enabling environment for volunteering. The event also marked the culmination of our contributions to global dialogues on the future of volunteering, which involved more than 14,000 people from 164 countries around the world, throughout 2025.
We are delighted to continue these discussions as a member of the National Focal Committee for IVY 2026, which is being led by Volunteer Ireland. We plan to use these opportunities to support and deepen values-led, solidarity-based volunteering. Anyone interested in this journey can start by exploring our IVY 2026 page and reading the Global Call to Action, reviewing our Code of Good Practice and its resources, signing up for one of our free online courses and digging deeper into critical perspectives on international values-led volunteering.