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Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall during the night of 14 to 15 March 2019 near Beira, a low-lying city of 500,000 residents in central Mozambique, before moving inland to neighbouring Zimbabwe and Malawi. The cyclone brought winds of up to 177 km/h (106 mph) and torrential rains that caused rivers to burst over their banks and submerge streets and homes across several provinces in Mozambique. Governmental officials described the damage as "massive and horrifying" while IFRC and UN officials described seeing “water and water for miles and miles” and “90 percent of the Beir...
UNITAR offers courses that run throughout the year or several times a year that are free-of-charge and open to the public. For more information about courses offered, please see below. , This self-paced course, jointly delivered by UNITAR and IUCN, promotes a dynamic learning approach through interactive lessons and multimedia contents. Participants will understand the nexus between biodiversity, climate change and land-use plans; discover the rights and roles of different stakeholders in the planning and decision-making process; and consider ways to col...
9 February 2022, Geneva, Switzerland - A category 5 Tropical Cyclone struck the Philippines in December 2021, causing significant damage and affecting a large part of the population. Following a request from the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (in Bangkok), of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UNOSAT’s Emergency Mapping service was activated to support the planning and coordination of emergency response operations with satellite imagery analysis., On the 16th of December 2021, Tropical Cyclone RAI-21 made landfall north ...
UNITAR hosts Orientation Course on the Economic and Social Council
23 January 2018, New York City, U.S.A – The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR) New York Office and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) have jointly hosted a one-day orientation course on the Economic and Social Council for the Members of the Council. The event was hosted in the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
The orientation course consisted of six different sessions which covered a wide variet...
19-21 November 2018, Brussels, Belgium – UNITAR hosted the Annual Meeting of its Network of Affiliated International Training Centres for Authorities and Leaders (CIFAL) in Brussels and in Antwerp, Belgium. The Directors of 15 CIFAL Centres gathered for three days to review its performance in 2018, discuss opportunities for collaboration, exchange knowledge and expertise, and to develop the training calendar for 2019.
The Annual Meeting also served to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of the CIFAL Global Network, which took place at the Flemish Parliament with s...
More than 15 analytical maps and reports have been produced by the UNOSAT team of satellite analysts in support to various UN humanitarian agencies and the UN Humanitarian Air Service since March. As the situation deteriorated due to the intensifying military activities in and around various cities on the coast, larger numbers of civilians found themselves trapped in conflict areas sometimes subject to heavy shelling, with slim chances to be reached by humanitarian relief or evacuated to safer areas.
The data available from commercial optical satellites is purchased a...
4 June 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - The Nyiragongo volcano, situated northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) started erupting on 22nd May at night. The fast-running lava flows and intense seismic activity threatened millions of people in this border region with Rwanda and called for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands.
UNOSAT’s rapid mapping service was activated on 23 May 2021 morning by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Goma, DRC. The activation covered the area around Goma, DRC, and Gisenyi, Rwanda...
24 July 2025, Paris, France - On 12 July 2025, the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) took part in the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. In collaboration with the International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST), UNOSAT co-hosted a thematic session titled: Digital Technologies for Sustainable Development of World Heritage Sites. This collaboration was part of a broader effort to promote the use of digital tools and geospatial technologies in support of UNESCO’s mission to safeguard World He...
In a change of focus determined by the conclusion of search and rescue operations in Haiti, UNOSAT closed its Rapid Mapping activation and embarked at the request of UNDP on a comprehensive damage assessment analysis over Port-au-Prince and neighbouring cities. The analysis, which builds also on parallel work performed by the European Commission JRC, French company SERTIT, Germany’s DRL/ZKI, Italy’s ITHACA and others, will contribute substantially in firming up the number of buildings affected by the tremor and will lead to a more precise estimate of the resources required ...
12 December 2023, Geneva, Switzerland - Eighteen per cent of structures in the Gaza Strip have been damaged since the outburst of the conflict. This figure comes from a new satellite imagery analysis conducted by the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) based on an image collected on 26 November 2023 with the very-high resolution WorldView-3 satellite. Additionally, there has been a staggering 49% increase in total structures affected since the last assessment on 7 November 2023.
As of 26 November 2023, UNOSAT has identified 10,049 destroyed structures, 8,243 severely ...