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While UNOSAT has consistently met high standards in very short delivery timelines, the new Data-in-hand strategy is an attempt to routinely approach actual near-real-time analysis. Francesco Pisano, Manager of UNOSAT, says “this level of responsiveness is not new at UNOSAT. What is new is our strategy to make this a standard feature. We keep looking downstream at user requirements in the field and we equip ourselves with what it takes to do better each time in responding to these”. In commenting on the attempts being done in some quarters of the GIS and space communities to...
July 2025 - In response to the ongoing conflict that began in October 2023, in collaboration with FAO, we’ve conducted a joint analysis to evaluate changes in agricultural land in southern Lebanon. The assessment compares land cover and vegetation health from a baseline period (October 2019 – 7 October 2023) to October 2024.A 2023 land cover map was generated using Sentinel-2 imagery (10 m resolution). Vegetation loss was assessed by comparing NDVI values from Landsat 7 and 8 imagery (30 m resolution), identifying areas with significant negative deviations. These were ...
The Institute’s evaluation function is guided by an evaluation policy and serves accountability, decision-making, organizational learning and quality improvement purposes.The policy is operationalized at the centralized and decentralized levels. At the centralized level, the Planning, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Unit acts as the custodian of the evaluation function and undertakes independent evaluations of projects and other undertakings e.g. on a cluster or thematic basis. At the decentralized level, Programme Units undertake self-evaluations of projects and...
10 August 2023, Port Vila, Vanuatu - Vanuatu faces many threats because of climate change – the most visible of which is sea-level rise. While coastal inundation poses great risks to infrastructure, damage can be mitigated through evidence-based planning geospatial information technologies (GIT). Leveraging GIT with new and innovative technologies like drones can assist decision-makers in targeting their country’s most vulnerable sectors and communities, thereby ensuring future resilience.
One key entry point in boosting Vanuatu’s climate resilience has been in supporting ...
6 February 2023, Geneva, Switzerland – On Monday 6 February 2023, two major earthquakes struck Türkiye and the northwestern parts of Syria in the early hours of the day.
The first, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, struck west of Gaziantep at 1:17 a.m. UTC. Just a few hours later, another strong earthquake of magnitude 7.5 struck the region at 10:24 a.m. UTC, with its epicentre 100km north of the first one.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) activated the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT)'s Emergency Mapping service ov...
10 March 2016, New York, USA - Mr. Nikhil Seth, UNITAR Executive Director, met today with the United Nations Secretary-General , Mr. Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Mr. Seth introduced to the Secretary-General UNITAR’s initiative called "Green Legacy Hiroshima" in which UNITAR is working with Hiroshima institutions and United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) Director-General to coordinate and arrange the planting of a Ginkgo Atomic bombed tree sapling from Hiroshima, in the Ariana Park of the Palais des Nations, the UN headquarters in ...
10 February 2021, Geneva, Switzerland – 2020 was a year of both challenges and accomplishments for UNITAR-UNOSAT. Our mapping teams delivered 1,136 products and services based on over 300 analyses to partners in 59 countries, with an emphasis on Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa & Western and South-Eastern Asia, but also Latin America and the Caribbean. Much of the data produced was used to assess exposure to and impact of hazards, but also to generate potential flood scenarios for refugee camp planning, assess damages, conduct sectoral analyses, and more. Throughout the ...
Francesco Pisano says: “We are continuing to equip the Programme with what it takes to do this job effectively and professionally. But this is done also to bring a distinct advantage to the entire UN family. After the partnership with Google to share crowd generated data with UNOSAT and the rest of the UN, this is a second main achievement by UNOSAT which will change the way we do things and the overall technology level of the UN. I hope this can be of help to the entire UN”. UNOSAT in fact has added to the purchase order the funds necessary to endow 3 other UN bodies with ...
The Junior Professional Officer programme or Associate Expert Programme is a multilateral technical cooperation initiative intended for young people, interested in acquiring experience in the development field, sponsored by their respective governments. At the same time, the programme assists the international organizations in their technical cooperation activities by providing JPO services in development initiatives.
For more information on eligibility criteria, how to apply, donor countries contact information, minimum requirements, vacancies please consult http://w...
Thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between UNESCO and UNITAR in 2015, and building on our previous two reports on damage to archeological sites in Syria (2014) and in Syria, Iraq, Nepal, and Yemen (2015), satellite imagery analysis is now a routine tool for assessing potential damage to cultural heritage sites.
The complementary roles of UNESCO and UNITAR-UNOSAT are important as they ensure an objective UN assessment of the status of cultural heritage, free from political bias and founded on scientific methods. This comprehensive study has revealed significan...