UNITAR, The Institute for Industrial Policy Studies (IPS), and the Taylor Institute at Franklin University Switzerland (FUS), have presented report results on National Competitiveness: Two rankings for each nation with low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy. The results of the IPS National Competitiveness Report were released on October 28, 2021, in a public conference of National Competitiveness organised by IPS and FUS, and co-hosted by UNITAR.

National ownership to monitor and achieve the SDGs is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda. However, many National Statistical Offices (NSO) face challenges in monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the SDGs. These challenges include the complexity of measuring certain problems and building relevant indicators, limited statistical capacity to monitor identified indicators, the lack of tools to facilitate the use of available information, and coordination difficulties experienced by stakeholders in producing, storing, and using the data, to name just a few.

26 October 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - For the second time in succession, UNITAR participated in the judging process to select the top 100 Meaningful Business leaders of the year. Meaningful Business, a global platform for leaders combining profit and purpose, has announced the 3rd edition of the Meaningful Business 100 (MB100) recognising outstanding contributions of individuals in support of the UN Global Goals, sponsored by EY.

21 October 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - During the 2021 World Data Forum (WDF), on the 6th of October 2021 in Bern, Switzerland, UNITAR, UN Statistics Division (UNSD) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in collaboration with the Global Network of Institutions for Statistical Training (GIST), organized a hybrid session “Statistics and Data Smart: Innovative solutions for increasing statistical literacy of the general public”. Conversations focused on strategies and initiatives to improve statistical literacy of different stakeholders from children, journalists to policy-makers and business people as well as citizens at large and promote an effective use of data in support of better societies.

"The work on this course has been a very practical level of collaboration linked to the network and as a result, we have also started looking into developing microlearning on statistics.”

16 September 2021, New York, USA - The UN Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNITAR, Mr. Nikhil Seth, is visiting New York during the high-level period of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). This is an official visit to the opening of the seventy-sixth session of the UNGA.

September 2021 - UNITAR, as the member of the Global Network of Institutions for Statistical Training (GIST), has recently published an article entitled “Strengthening the competencies of policy makers for better use of data in public policy design” in the Statistical Journal of the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS).

September 2021 - UN SDG:Learn launched its Blog and Podcast series featuring unique organic contact with inputs from various experts.

Visit UN SDG:Learn Blog and Podcast pages.

September 2021 - Crowd4SDG Consortium has launched the second GEAR Cycle of the project. This year the project aims to address two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – Goal 13 on Climate Change and Goal 5 on Gender Equality. With its launch, it calls for projects that will aim to tackle climate change and gender challenges with crowdsourcing solutions. This is an open challenge competition that uses crowdsourcing as a way to gather information or stimulate actions taken by large numbers of ordinary citizens. Individuals or teams can propose projects at the scale of a community, a region, a country or the entire world.

September 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of people, and countries’ economies in unprecedented ways. The governments’ efforts to achieve the global 2030 Agenda have halted or even rolled back as a result of the global health crisis. A number of short-term measures had to be taken to respond to this health emergency and then address the recovery through significant money injections. This short-term response has, however, at times failed to account for mid-term and long-term effects and objectives. The need for a sustainable recovery as part of a more integrated and forward-looking vision has been broadly recognized by many countries and stakeholders as the basis for the achievement of the SDGs and national priorities.