GCRI · Agency
Volunteer and professional roles
Expertise reaches institutions through staff, consultants, seconded personnel, interns and volunteers. Each relationship carries different rights, duties, pay, liability and ownership of work. When the boundaries blur, people lose protection, institutions take on unplanned liability and the legal status of outputs becomes uncertain. This page sets out how engagement types differ, how misclassification arises and spreads, and what the institutions that engage people need to keep clear.
How the work runs.
Assignment and team board
Volunteer and professional roles · Assignment pool · Quarter 3
Assignments
Team record
| Team lead | Disaster risk management | None declared | Confirmed |
| Hydrologist | Flood modelling | Declared, managed | Confirmed |
| Data engineer | Pipelines | None declared | Invited |
| Reviewer | Independent | None declared | Confirmed |
Scope
- Requester
- Requesting institution
- Duration
- 10 weeks
- Authority
- stays with the requester
- Fee
- no fee stated
Fig.Assignment and team board: example names and illustrative values, not a record or a live system.
Volunteer and professional roles: how the risk develops.
Clear employment and contribution boundaries. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Status is misclassified
A consultant who works fixed hours under direct control for years, or a volunteer who does the core work of a paid post, may in law be an employee. Labour authorities look at the facts of the relationship, not its label.
Volunteering displaces paid work
Unpaid roles that substitute for local paid jobs or for staff the institution should hire undermine labour markets and fairness. Volunteering adds value where it complements paid work, with defined tasks and support.
Protection gaps open
Insurance, health and safety coverage, grievance access and safeguarding duties differ by engagement type. A person outside every scheme is exposed, and so is the institution that relied on them.
Disputes cascade
A claim for employment rights, an injury without cover or a dispute over who owns a deliverable can lead to back pay, penalties, unusable outputs and reputational damage that reaches funders and partners.
People and hazards in East Africa.
Population density, night lights and flood water over East Africa, from NASA GIBS. Each layer carries its own date.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 3
People and hazards, for this page
About this layer
- Evidence
- Estimated
- Source
- Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (NASA SEDAC (CIESIN, Columbia University))
- Provider
- NASA SEDAC (CIESIN, Columbia University)
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Vintage
- null; Census-based estimate, static (2020)
- Resolution
- about 1 km grid
- Uncertainty
- Census-based estimate of people per square kilometre in 2020, shown as exposure context; not a count of people affected by any hazard.
- Reached through
- gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, only after you allow the live map
About this layer
- Evidence
- Observed
- Source
- VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2) (NASA LAADS DAAC)
- Provider
- NASA LAADS DAAC
- Licence
- NASA open data
- Vintage
- daily; Satellite radiance, corrected for moonlight and atmosphere
- Newest at build
- 2026-10-12
- Resolution
- about 500 m grid
- Uncertainty
- Satellite night-time radiance for the date shown; lights are a proxy for electricity use and outages, not a measurement of supply or access.
- Reached through
- gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, only after you allow the live map
About this layer
- Evidence
- Observed (clouds leave gaps)
- Source
- VIIRS Global Flood Product (NASA LANCE)
- Provider
- NASA LANCE
- Licence
- NASA open data
- Vintage
- daily; Satellite detection; clouds leave gaps
- Newest at build
- 2026-10-14
- Resolution
- about 250 m grid
- Uncertainty
- Satellite detection; clouds leave gaps. Satellite or model raster as the provider publishes it. Clouds, swath gaps and retrieval error leave gaps and noise; values are indicators, not measurements at a place.
- Reached through
- gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, only after you allow the live map
About this layer
- Evidence
- Observed
- Source
- VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance (NASA LANCE)
- Provider
- NASA LANCE
- Licence
- NASA open data
- Vintage
- daily; Satellite image
- Newest at build
- 2026-10-14
- Resolution
- about 250 m grid
- Uncertainty
- Satellite image. Satellite or model raster as the provider publishes it. Clouds, swath gaps and retrieval error leave gaps and noise; values are indicators, not measurements at a place.
- Reached through
- gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, only after you allow the live map
About this layer
- Evidence
- Modelled (latest year GIBS publishes)
- Source
- MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1) (NASA LP DAAC)
- Provider
- NASA LP DAAC
- Licence
- NASA open data
- Vintage
- yearly; Satellite classification; latest year GIBS publishes
- Newest at build
- 2024-01-01
- Resolution
- about 500 m grid
- Uncertainty
- Satellite land cover classes for the year shown, including croplands; a classification with known errors, not a farm register.
- Reached through
- gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, only after you allow the live map
About this layer
- Evidence
- Observed (clouds leave gaps)
- Source
- MODIS Terra EVI (NASA LANCE)
- Provider
- NASA LANCE
- Licence
- NASA open data
- Vintage
- daily; Satellite index; clouds leave gaps
- Newest at build
- 2026-10-13
- Resolution
- about 250 m grid
- Uncertainty
- Satellite vegetation index for the 8 days to the date shown, a habitat condition indicator; not a measure of species or biodiversity.
- Reached through
- gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, only after you allow the live map
Keyboard, with the map focused
Hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoom
Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
Loading the latest NASA imagery.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
People and hazards, framed on East Africa.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONET · NASA JPL OPERA DIST-ALERTSources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
- VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS land products (vegetation indices, gross primary production, land cover), NASA LP DAAC and LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- Live: NASA EONET Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
- Observed (EO): NASA JPL OPERA DIST-ALERT (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026). We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- Optional layers (5 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
- Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
- True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Land cover type (IGBP), yearly: MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1), NASA LP DAAC · 2024
- Enhanced vegetation index, rolling 8 days: MODIS Terra EVI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Roles are defined the same way in every domain.
Role records are designed to carry contextual identifiers under NS-9 of the proposed Nexus Standards. Volunteer roles follow decent work principles; no role is unpaid professional work in disguise.
- Role descriptions for review.
- Volunteer experience accounts.
Model volunteer and professional roles as a system. Run the cascade.
Assembled from the Nexus Standards area profile Disaster risk reduction: the hazards it names, the systems and sectors that carry the loss, the controls that dampen it and the data that observe it. Choose the components, pick an initiating hazard and step through the cascade. The Map view places the run on an example geography with open data. Every coupling weight is a stated assumption you can change. A teaching model, not a forecast, an assessment or a certification. To model a place of your own choosing, open the full System Builder.
Hazards
- Tropical cyclone
- Flash flood
- Heatwave
- Ice-jam flood
- HIV epidemic
- Earthquake
- Storm surge (set off downstream)
- Intense rainfall (set off downstream)
- River flood (set off downstream)
- Dangerous surf (set off downstream)
- Widespread power outage (set off downstream)
- Mass displacement (set off downstream)
- Coastal flood (set off downstream)
- Extreme fire weather (set off downstream)
- Wildfire (set off downstream)
- Heat-driven grid stress (set off downstream)
- Agricultural drought (set off downstream)
- Flash drought (set off downstream)
Systems and couplings
Controls
NS-0Constitution and principlesNS-1The UNI and the artefact catalogue (grammar v0.2: domain, sector, region and environment segments)NS-3Risk record UNIs (grammar, legacy crosswalk, allocation authority)NS-3bDataset and product metadata profile (STAC, DCAT, PROV-O)NS-9Contextual UNIs (deployments, instances, programme instances)NS-11Verification and monitoring (evidence, attestations, zero-trust conformance observation)NS-14Conformance and crosswalk to external standardsNRS-C15Loss, damage and impact accountingNRS-H114Hazard family: Macroeconomic and fiscal shocks (NHS-1 soc.macro-fiscal)NRS-K20Domain pack profile: Climate adaptation (DOMAIN-020)NRS-H54Hazard family: Signal and platform disruption (NHS-1 cyber.platform)NRS-H65Hazard family: Planetary boundary transgressions (NHS-1 planet.boundary)NRS-H119Hazard family: Cultural heritage loss (NHS-1 soc.heritage)
Observation
- DesInventar disaster loss databases (listed for reference)
- INFORM Risk Index (listed for reference)
- Global SDG Indicators Database (listed for reference)
- EM-DAT international disaster database (listed for reference)
- Number of deaths and missing persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population
- Number of directly affected people attributed to disasters per 100,000 population
- Direct economic loss attributed to disasters in relation to global GDP
- Damage to critical infrastructure attributed to disasters
- Number of countries that adopt and implement national DRR strategies
- Total public international support for national disaster risk reduction actions (Sendai indicator F-1)
- Number of countries that have multi-hazard early warning systems
- Number of deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population
Example geography
- Bangladesh: 134 hexagonal cells
- Rain rate, last half hour (IMERG), NASA GIBS
- Surface water through cloud, 30 m (OPERA DSWx-S1 radar), NASA GIBS
- Surface air temperature, daytime (AIRS), NASA GIBS
- Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band), NASA GIBS
What is measured, and how well.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engagements with written terms stating the engagement type | percent of engagements | quarterly | Engagement records | REPORTED |
| Volunteer roles with defined tasks, time commitment and supervisor | percent of volunteer roles | annual | Volunteer management records | REPORTED |
| Consultants engaged continuously beyond the defined term | count of persons | annual | Contract records | Published statistics |
| Engagements with insurance and duty-of-care cover by type | percent of engagements | annual | Insurance and human resource records | REPORTED |
| Engagements with intellectual property terms in writing | percent of engagements | annual | Contract records | REPORTED |
| Volunteer work rate | percent of working-age population | per survey | Labour force surveys | Published statistics |
| Grievances and disputes by engagement type | count | annual | Grievance and legal records | REPORTED |
How volunteer and professional roles is modelled, measured and tested.
The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.
Datasets and provenance
The data classes behind volunteer and professional roles and what is recorded about each before it is used.
| Data class | Provenance recorded | Resolution stated | Licence checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satellite imagery, optical and radar | sensor, processing level, acquisition date | pixel size and revisit | per scene |
| Reanalysis and climate model output | model, experiment, member, version | grid and time step | per release |
| In-situ sensors and gauges | station, instrument, calibration record | point and sampling rate | per network |
| Population and asset exposure | method, vintage, input sources | cell size and unit | per release |
| Boundaries and reference geography | producer, edition, date | scale | per edition |
- Lineage
- W3C PROV record from source to figure
- Principles
- FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable
- Gaps
- shown as missing, never filled silently
Where the evidence comes from.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| ILOSTAT volunteer work statistics | Survey-based measures of volunteer work by country | Open, attribution |
| ILO Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work | Definitions and survey methods that distinguish volunteer work from employment | Public document, ILO terms |
| UN Volunteers programme reports | Reports on volunteer engagement, conditions of service and the state of volunteering | Public documents |
| UN Joint Inspection Unit reviews of non-staff personnel | Findings on the use of consultants and other non-staff contracts in UN organisations | Public documents |
| National labour inspection reports | Enforcement findings on employment status and working conditions | Public records, terms per inspectorate |
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
Agency prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Human resources function of the engaging institution | Which engagement type fits the work, and when a role must become a post | Engagement-type matrix; duration and control of the role in practice |
| National labour inspectorate or labour court | Whether a relationship is in fact employment | Facts of control, integration, duration and pay, as recorded |
| Volunteer-involving organisation | Whether a volunteer role complements paid work and is safe and supported | Role description, supervision and cover |
| Funding agency | Whether personnel costs charged to a grant reflect lawful engagements | Contracts, timesheets and engagement terms |
Outputs this topic produces
- Engagement-type matrices showing rights, duties, cover and ownership for each type
- Volunteer role descriptions that set tasks, limits and supervision
- Status review prompts for long-running consultancies
- Contribution records that state who did what under which terms
What every contributor should know.
- In what capacity am I contributing: voluntary, paid, seconded or as a learner?
- Who is my counterparty, if anyone, and on what terms?
- Who owns and may use what I produce?
- What am I responsible for, and what am I not?
Why ambiguity causes harm.
When roles are unclear, volunteers can end up doing work that should be paid, learners can be given responsibilities beyond their competence and professionals can find their liability uncertain. Ambiguity also creates legal risk: depending on jurisdiction, sustained unpaid work under direction can be treated as employment.
Clear boundaries protect contributors and hosts alike, and make it possible to recognise contributions honestly without overstating them.
The main ways people contribute.
- 01
Working group members
Experts contributing by competence through the National Working Groups (NWG), with no fee.
- 02
Volunteers
Bounded contributions, recorded as such, without direction that would amount to employment.
- 03
Professionals
Paid assignments under written terms that name the contracting organisation.
- 04
Secondees
Staff contributed by their institution under its own terms.
- 05
Learners
Supervised placements with a mentor and a learning plan. A learning record is never a licence. Role design draws on systems engineering.
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
Where this page’s references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
What decides whether someone is an employee?
When is volunteering appropriate in technical work?
Who owns work produced by a volunteer?
Can my capacity change during an engagement?
Do working group members get paid?
Does volunteering lead to employment?
Who owns what volunteers produce?
Can a learner placement count towards a professional qualification?
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium’s quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
- EmailGateway GW-GCRISend it from this pageEvidence, a correction, a case, a method, a review, a translation or profile input. It arrives tagged with this page, so the editor who owns it receives it.
- ZenodoOpen depositDeposit it and submit to the communityPublish your own record on Zenodo with your ORCID iD, then submit it to the Reports community there. Curators review it; the DOI stays yours.
- ReportsGCRISee every way to contributeThe contribution types, how each is reviewed, what credit you receive, the licence and what is never accepted.
Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.
Bring a method, a dataset or a question.
Information and enquiries are open today. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.
Legal documents.
Maps, data and figures on this site are shown for context and general information. They are not advice, forecasts or warnings; the limits of the information are set out in the Disclaimers and Data Notices.