Gov’t develops national volunteer policy roadmap

Government has drafted a volunteer infrastructure framework aimed at harnessing varied expertise and experiences in different fields to bolster social services in rural communities and largely mitigate sanitation problems confronting urban cities.

“A sub-committee set up to work on the first draft has finished its work and submitted it to the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection,” Mr Kwodwo Morgan, the Chairman of Volunteer Infrastructure National Planning Committee (VI-NPC) told journalists on Tuesday at a workshop to generate media campaign to revive the interest of the public to engage in volunteerism in the country.

Mr Morgan noted that the country urgently required a policy or legal structure that would substantially guide the coordination, control and management of volunteerism, so that government could place value on it, and calculate how much the nation saved in a given year through volunteers activities.

“The next step is for the first draft to be reviewed by stakeholders, however, a very effective media campaign, essential to the entire process is needed,” Mr Morgan added.

The proposed policy framework is expected to culminate in the formulation of a legislation to control and manage volunteers, whose activities had been unregulated and unceremonious for proper mobilisation and monitoring towards national development.

“We need a policy for guidelines and legislation to direct the activities of volunteers in the country. There are no guidelines for people who want to volunteer externally or internally,” he said, adding, “The time to have a policy or legislation is now, we need to establish a regulatory framework that will control and mange volunteer activities in this country.”

Mr Morgan noted that organisations and individuals bring people into the country to undertake volunteering activities and charge monies for such activities.

“The question we need to ask is, do we need volunteers in education, do we need volunteers in health, do we have data on them?”

The United Nations Volunteer facilitated the process of producing the roadmap with timelines towards the design, development and adoption of a national volunteer policy to support development efforts of government.

Volunteerism is offering unpaid services to solve development challenges for the benefit of the larger society.

Ghana in the past has benefitted from volunteer activities in education, health, among others, but has no policy or laws that specifically address volunteerism in a comprehensive manner.