Underlining the importance of the voluntary sector in planning and execution of programmes, the planning commission will finalise a road map for the involvement of them in the 12th five-year plan this week.

“On December 8, the steering committee on voluntary sector of the planning commission will finalise a road map for the voluntary sectors,” said Syeda Hameed, a member of the planning commission. She was releasing of UN’s state of world’s volunteerism report here on Monday.

Hameed said the country faces huge challenges in uplifting the goals related to the human indices of the country. “We have a lot of ground work like - malnutrition of children, anameia among women and violence among women etc to cover. We have challenges of the millennium development goals (MDGs). In that matter, the voluntary sector has a very important and significant role to play,” Hameed added.

She also said, “How we are going to make the voluntary sector as preference sector is what we are working on. We will ensure that the sector gets resources to execute their programmes.”

The UN report says that volunteer work contributed approximately 0.9 percent of the GDP in India. It said, “In developing and transition countries, volunteer work represented 0.7 percent of GDP, while for developed countries it was 2.7 percent of GDP.” The figure was calculated on the basis of economic contribution of volunteers in the 36 countries.

The report also took note of Teach India campaign, launched by the Times of India in 2008, and the Chipko movement of the 1970s for the protection of forest.

It was the first UN report on volunteers. December 5 is celebrated as international volunteer day.