Peter Devereux

This field study explores how career considerations intersect with other motives to inform the decision by skilled professionals to accept long-term international development volunteer positions. Analyzing pre-assignment interviews with 50 volunteers, we find strong interdependencies between volunteers’ careers and their altruistic objectives, with large numbers across different career stages seeking to use their volunteer experiences to curate careers that, variously, establish, recalibrate, advance, refresh, or extend their prosocial contributions beyond their volunteer assignment. We identify six volunteer profiles—that we label Launchers, Enhancers, Career Breakers, Transitioners, Imposed Transitioners, and Veterans—which are broadly aligned to career stage, and which present a nuanced perspective of the individual-altruism nexus in international volunteering. We advance modern career theories by showing how international volunteering experiences serve as pathways to bring greater career meaning while simultaneously introducing precarity and liminality that increase the already high opportunity costs of international development volunteering.

With the onset of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change, the world's nations were to create economic development integrating environmental and social improvement. However, there is still much uncertainty in the world of politics and academia as to whether these integrated goals are achievable and how they can fit best with diverse national and local contexts. Thus, there is always a need to find nations that can show how it can be achieved in different settings shaped by local experiences, challenges, and opportunities. Bhutan could be one of these nations as it could be argued that it has, to an extent, simplified the task to fit its values and aspirations. Bhutan has three major goals that need to be integrated: Wealth (GDP) to align with their middle-income aspiration, thus providing opportunities for employment, Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG) that are maintained at a carbon neutral level, which is beyond most national commitments, and Bhutan's renowned Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, which covers their socio-economic goals. We show this integration and then synthesize some core findings from a literature review on the theory and practice of sustainable development through the lens of the three integrated goals of Bhutan, thereby placing the case of Bhutan into the wider literature. This paper seeks to show how one emerging nation can model an operational sustainability policy. The paper highlights some plausible synergies between the 17 SDGs and the domains and indicators of GNH that could help nations struggling with how they can create sensible sustainability outcomes from these new global agendas. Bhutan has framed the GNH as its contribution to sustainability. However, this paper suggests that it may be the integration of the GNH with GDP and GHG that is its real contribution. Furthermore, Bhutan's 3G model of fully integrating GNH, GDP, and GHG suggests a way forward for achieving their imperatives of economic growth, whilst enabling the SDGs and achieving the difficult climate change goal. It may also suggest a model for other nations wanting to find a complementary way of framing economic growth, the 17 SDGs, and the Paris Agreement into a coherent set of policies.

How can we prepare for and motivate ongoing improvements in development practice in the world of universal sustainable development goals? International Development Studies courses are a relatively new phenomenon. Earlier, people entered the field with technical backgrounds and learnt on the job. Similarly, many took the road from long-term international volunteering or Junior Expert/Junior Professional Officer posts, and moved into a career in international development [Baillie Smith, M. and N. Laurie, 2011, 'International volunteering and development: Global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers; Devereux, P., 2008, 'International volunteering for development and sustainability: Outdated paternalism or a radical response to globalisation?', Development in Practice, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 357-370; White, P., 2015, 'The spectrum of motivations, experiences and attitudes in technical development cooperation', Forum for Development Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 89-112]. More recently, development studies courses have emerged. Are they finding the right balance between critical approaches, history and vocational skills? A difference in motivations and expectations between early and mid-late career Finnish development workers was found from earlier research (White, 2015). With this case study we add a focus on the pre-career stage (via questionnaires and interviews), considering the motivations of Finnish development studies students in first year, postgraduate studies and after graduation. The article acknowledges the range of motivations and experience of those engaged with international development. It also considers the tension between critical theory and vocational skills. Competencies for development practice encompass a combination of theoretical knowledge, technical skills, administrative know-how and attitudinal factors. We conclude that co-production, combining academic courses and research, including reflective and experiential practice, is a positive step forward.

With volunteering recognised for its invaluable cross-cutting role, this paper seeks common ground between national and international volunteering agendas within the new global context created by the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in January 2016. By highlighting the dearth of research at the intersection between national and international volunteering, and by examining opportunities for collaboration and consolidation, the authors propose that now is the time to bring the separate research agendas together.

As with the Millennium Development Goals, the UN’s Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will only be achieved with the active engagement of volunteers. Volunteer contributions to sustainable development are distinctive. Volunteers’ close engagement with communities in need, their skills and motivation to contribute to more inclusive, active and cohesive societies, and modeling/facilitation of the reciprocal exchange of knowledge and skills among stakeholders make volunteers distinctive actors in support of the achievement of the SDGs. This paper discusses options for documenting and showcasing the collective contributions of a diverse community of volunteers to sustainable development, in the context of recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In this paper I intend to consider how long term international volunteers contribute to human security, international development and sustainability. With so much emphasis on governance, security and counter terrorism in our now globalised world, it is easy to focus mainly on states and national defense and forget the importance of individual human beings for building trust, cultivating hope and making a difference. The paper will begin by discussing the history and evolution of international volunteer sending agencies and volunteers as a response not just to symptoms but to causes of global poverty and inequality. I will consider how international volunteers might be defined, what may make their role different to other forms of overseas development assistance via personnel, and the positives and negatives that may accompany those differences. I also want to reflect on international volunteers’ role and suitability as contributors in the transition to a globally more ecologically sustainable state using O’Riordans idea of the need for a ‘spirit of communal obligation’ that enables individuals to ‘relate to others’ needs’. I will link this reflection to some concrete international environmental volunteer experiences drawn from current PhD research on the topic.

This article discusses the history and evolution of international volunteer-sending agencies and volunteers as a response not only to symptoms but also to causes of global poverty and inequality. It considers how international volunteers might be defined, what makes their role different from other forms of overseas development assistance (particularly their contribution to capacity development), and the positives and negatives that may accompany those differences. It also reflects on international volunteers' suitability as contributors in the transition to a globally more ecologically sustainable state, presenting some insights from volunteers and other stakeholders.