“My world drastically expanded when I gathered the courage to take this step. It was definitely worth it,” says second-year Takeda High School student Sakura OMURA, who became a 2020 UNITAR Youth Ambassador. UNITAR Hiroshima Office/Division for Prosperity, in collaboration with the UNITAR Association, annually runs the UNITAR Youth Ambassador programme for high school students in Hiroshima. UNITAR seeks to nurture these young people, who are expected to play an important role in the international community, by providing opportunities for exposure to the global community. Sakura was one of the 24 youth selected for the 2020 programme, which was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

he largest ever opinion survey on climate change was carried out by UN CC:Learn partner UNDP in 2020 and showed that 64% of 1.2 million respondents think that climate change is a global emergency. The survey entitled "People's Climate Vote" covered 50 countries, reflecting a bit more than half of the world's population, and its results were analyzed by the University of Oxford. Find out the results.

2 March 2020, New York, USA - UNITAR New York Office organized the 2 day training series on Negotiations during the COVID- 19 Era for the fellows of the Women and International Security in Cyberspace Fellowship. The training was sponsored by the office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet of New Zealand.

Natallia noted that more and more officials and experts in the field are completing FAO-UNITAR courses, which is also conducive for the promotion of new ideas at the national level.

28 February 2021, Hiroshima, Japan – The NPO Hiroshima Yokogawa Sports Culture Club and the United Nations Training and Research Institute (UNITAR) are pleased to announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will strengthen their mutual commitment to using the power of sports in pursuit of peacebuilding. Activities covered by the agreement will focus on sustainable development, gender equality and the empowerment of women and youth.

26 February 2021, New York, USA (Virtual) - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) New York Office, along with the Columbia Law School, hosted the “Conducting Successful Virtual Negotiations” workshop on Friday, 26 February 2021. This was the second session of the Spring 2021 Columbia Law School training series and was supported with funding allocated from the Swedish International Development Agency’s (SIDA) contribution to the UNITAR Strategic Framework Fund, under the programme ‘Leveling the Playing Field’ which focuses on the development of skills and knowledge of Least Developing Countries. Participants of all the sessions of the series will receive a certificate signed by the Dean of Columbia Law School, Gillian Lester and ASG, Executive Director, Mr. Nikhil Seth.

25 February, Geneva Switzerland - The Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm developed by UNOSAT with the support of UN Global Pulse, the UN Secretary-General's innovation initiative, was used in the recent rapid mapping activation for seasonal floods in Mozambique.

24 February 2021, Hiroshima, Japan - UNITAR Hiroshima and the UNITAR Association will co-host “The Japanese perspective on gender”, the ninth in its public discussion series, Ideas That Matter. As part of its celebration, UNITAR Division of Prosperity will also co-host a daylong, virtual conference titled Women in STEM in Time of the Pandemic – Facing Challenges, Finding Resilience. Produced in partnership with the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), and the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC), this global conference will highlight the challenges and opportunities for women in STEM (science, technology, economics and mathematics) arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

23 February 2021, New York, USA and Guatemala City, Guatemala – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research New York Office (UNITAR NYO) hosted a course on the work of the ECOSOC, entitled “UNITAR Orientation Course of the ECOSOC for Guatemala Delegates” on 23 February 2021. As with the previous course held in January, this training took place in an online format, attracting over 20 delegates that participated from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Mission of Guatemala in New York. The UNITAR New York office delivered a three-session online training to diplomats mostly working within the human rights, multilateral policy, international policy and cooperation fields, under the auspices of the Sweden programme entitled “Leveling the Playing Field”.

Together with ADN Group, UNITAR is organizing the second edition of World Negotiation Day on 9 March 2021. The event will bring together some of the world’s top negotiators from the public and private sectors – ambassadors, leaders, and executives – who have shaped some of the pivotal events of 2020.