Financing urban water infrastructure is not easy: typically investments involve a high capital outlay and long pay-back periods, as well as greater risks and lower rates of return than other forms of infrastructure.

OHCHR/UNITAR Human Rights Orientation Programme for Diplomats in Geneva - Register Now!
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) are pleased to announce that the next edition of the Human Rights Orientation Programme for Diplomats will be held on the 6th and 7th of September 2010 in Geneva.

The increase in the degree of financial integration and the recent impacts of financial crisis stirred up heated debates on the influence that “financial globalization” has on different types of economies. What is interesting is that the first major development “financial globalization” appeared in the 19th century and after 150 years of evolution we still have not reached conclusion on many captivating aspects of “financial globalization”.

August 6th marked an historic occasion for UNITAR's Hiroshima Office as H. E. Ban Ki-moon became the first United Nations Secretary-General to visit the historic city. He delivered a speech during the memorial ceremony of the 65th Anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and also presented a floral offering at the cenotaph commemorating it's victims.

On the occasion of his recent visit to China, UNITAR Executive Director and UN Assistant Secretary-General Carlos Lopes gave the keynote speech opening a model UN conference in Tianjin, China.

In late June, on the occasion of the UNITAR Board of Trustees meeting in Beijing, UNITAR Executive Director Carlos Lopes and UNITAR staff undertook a series of key meetings with a wide variety of senior officials in the Chinese government and academia. The meetings were aimed at strengthening the already close cooperation between UNITAR and China.

As the situation in Pakistan continues to be a main concern due to new rainfall, UNOSAT analysts have completed on Thursday this week a series of maps derived from satellite imagery and aimed at identifying flood extent and impact on the affected populations in the Republic of Moldova.

On 12 July 2010 UNITAR signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) located in Gujarat, India.
UNITAR’s partnerships strategy aims at developing agreements with Academic institutions such as Universities and Research Centres around the world.

UNITAR has initiated a process to assess some of its training courses in order to identify modalities to obtain credit recognition or validation within the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS).  In this sense, the Institute has signed a framework agreement with the University Fernando Pessoa  (UFP) through which

Heavy rains in the past week have triggered both flash floods and river floods in several parts of the country resulting in serious loss of life and widespread displacement of populations, In some provinces these floods are the worst since the early 20th century.