Where next for volunteering and sustainable development?

Cliff’s talk explores the current role of volunteers in sustainable development, taking into account the relatively higher profile given to volunteering in the UN system in contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Drawing on various studies undertaken with international colleagues, Cliff explores how international volunteering has changed over the past period and considers how the response to the existential crisis of COVID-19 has seen a closer connection between international, national and community volunteering at different levels.

One feature has been the closer connection between global volunteer networks which recently facilitated a collaboration on how to address the future of volunteering for sustainable development in the context of IYV 2026 and Agenda 2030. The initial step was a challenge paper, of which Cliff was a co-author, from which the collaborators (IAVE, FORUM, IFRC and Generation Unlimited) intend to launch a sector wide debate in 2025. Cliff reviews the key issues arising from the Challenge paper, including key trends in volunteering, the actual and potential role of key actors, and what constitutes an enabling environment for volunteering, setting out the key challenges for volunteering in relation to sustainable development over the next period.

Bio: Cliff Allum is a writer, researcher and consultant in International Development, specializing in volunteering. In 2017, he joined the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Birmingham, UK as an Associate Fellow and has worked with academics, practitioners and activists in different countries on research, consultancies and articles. He has published papers on a range of issues on volunteering for development, including impact and measurement, climate change and the emergence of new volunteer models following the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently he was the lead writer on the UN Secretary General’s triennial report to the UN General Assembly 2024. Currently he is working with academic and researcher colleagues in South Africa on a Challenge paper for the future of volunteering for development linked to the International Year of Volunteers 2026.

Originally pursuing an academic career, Cliff studied for a PhD at the University of Warwick and after teaching in the extra-mural department of the University of Birmingham and the WEA, moved into social and economic development. This led to a career in international development and until 2016, Cliff was the CEO of Skillshare International, a UK-based International Volunteering and Development Organisation, which had originally been part of the UK IVS. He was also President of the International Forum on Volunteering for Development between 2002-2008 and was a founder member of the Forum Research Group, now renamed RPPL. He is also a past Chair of BOND, the UK-based NGO network on International Development.

Cliff is active in his local community of Bournville, Birmingham UK, in developing and providing community tennis and supporting local campaigns and is a trustee of the Friends group of his local park. Cliff is also an LTA qualified tennis coach and referee.