7 September 2021, New York, USA – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) New York Office successfully implemented its two-day training, the “Transition Workshop for the 76th Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA),” in partnership with the Permanent Missions of Ecuador, Finland, and Malaysia. This workshop was organized to support the Office of the President of the General Assembly in its transition between the 75th and 76th OPGA, and to specifically facilitate opportunities for existing, former, and incoming OPGA staff to share experiences and best practices for a successful transition. This workshop marked UNITAR NYO’s first in-person training workshop since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and was attended by more than 30 delegates, following social distancing measures.

2 September 2021, Geneva, Switzerland – On 28 September 2021, UNITAR and the University of Geneva, co-chairing the University Global Coalition Working Group on Open Innovation for the SDGs, host a session on "Reinforcing the SDGs through open innovation" in the 2021 University Global Coalition Annual Conference "Building Connections and Action for the SDGs".

06 July 2021, New York, USA - On July 6, United Nations Institute for Training and Research in partnership with United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and United Nations Climate Change Convention (UNCCC) hosted the launch of their e-learning course Harnessing Climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Synergies.

12 July 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - Achieving SDGs is the responsibility of not only governments but of everyone else – every citizen. There are several ways to do so. Support with data collection and monitoring of progress on SDG implementation is one of them. National Statistical Offices (NSO) have been experimenting with different new sources of data to bridge the data gaps to be able to track progress on the SDGs. This side event, on 12 July 2021, on the sidelines of the 2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) aimed to demonstrate how exactly citizens can make their contributions through innovative solutions and how such citizen science or citizen-generated data can be of use to the National Statistical Offices (NSOs). The event was organized by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) together with members of the Crowd4SDG Consortium, University of Geneva, Politecnico di Milano, CERN, Spanish National Research Council, and Université de Paris.

7 July 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - On the 7th of July 2021, UNDESA and UNITAR, jointly with CANEUS, FILAC, UNOOSA and GNDR, organized a session entitled “Integrating recovery planning from COVID-19, building resilience and strengthening policy coherence towards the SDGs” as part of the SDGs Learning, Training & Practice Center’s learning sessions on the sidelines of the 2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). It was an opportunity to present the new UNDESA-UNITAR course “Integrated Recovery Planning and Policy Coherence Towards the SDGs” to policy-makers and other stakeholders.

31 May 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Open Geneva Association have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote the education and practice of open innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

27 May 2021, Geneva, Switzerland and Beijing, China - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the Geneva School of Economics and Management of the University of Geneva and the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set global standards for SDG Education and Open Innovation.

On 27th May 2021, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), which is a partner in the EU-funded Crowd4SDG project, organised a panel discussion “Unleashing the potential of citizen science data for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” as part of the Crowd4SDG project. The panel had a two-fold objective – to disseminate emerging good practices among National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and National Statistical Systems (NSSs) on leveraging citizen science for monitoring progress on SDGs and related national and local level objectives, and to create space for discussing the needs of NSOs that could be addressed through concrete citizen science projects using a challenge-based approach. Aligned with this objective, the event was conducted in two parts. The first part focussed on the key findings and recommendations from the Crowd4SDG study and case studies on the use of citizen science data for monitoring SDGs. This was followed by the presentation of Crowd4SDG tools for citizen science, the discussion on the needs of NSOs and NSSs and a call for official statistics challenges for the Crowd4SDG citizen science competition to open in summer 2021.

27 May 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - On 27 and 28 September 2021, the University Global Coalition, in partnership with the United Nations, under UNITAR's continuous support and ongoing partnership, will host its second annual conference, successively after its first online gathering in 2020. UNITAR stands among the founding signatory members of the Coalition, and is represented in its Steering Committee by the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director, Mr. Nikhil Seth.

May 4, 2021, New York, USA.- The Head of the UNITAR Office in New York, Mr. Marco Suazo, participated in the side event entitled “Building an Effective Way Forward for Indigenous Peoples to Participate and Contribute with their Knowledge and Experience” in the framework of the 6th Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs.