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The UN Secretary-General Appoints Nikhil Seth of India Executive Director of UNITAR
8 June 2015 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced today the appointment of Nikhil Seth of India as Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). He will succeed Sally Fegan-Wyles of Ireland, to whom the Secretary-General expressed his utmost gratitude for her dedication and commitment to the United Nations.
Mr. Seth brings to the position over 35 years of service as an international and national civil servant and a wealth of...
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...
3 November 2022, Accra, Ghana - The Group on Earth Observation and the Earth Observations for Sustainable Development Goals (EO4SDG) Initiative announced the winners of the 2022 GEO SDG Awards at GEO Week 2022. The United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) received the GEO Participating Organization Award for its Emergency Mapping service, recognizing the productivity, innovation, novelty and exemplary efforts in the use of Earth observations to support sustainable development. Launched in 2019, this annual award is presented to those making an impact on the 1...
Franklin University Switzerland and UNITAR organized a joint event during the Open Geneva Hackathon Festival. The online Hackathon "Food as a nexus for synchronic urban and rural development" offered a platform to generate innovative ideas to rethink and improve food as a linkage for development in rural and urban areas. The hackathon lasted three days and was delivered entirely online, allowing participants worldwide to join the event.
The event included the participation of UN-Habitat, FAO and UNITAR experts to facilitate workshops and group work activities. Four w...
February 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - The new application, called “CyberMappr”, has been developed within the Citizen Cyberscience Centre (CCC), created by UNITAR, CERN and University of Geneva as an incubator of new tools involving citizen-to-citizen cyberscience. CyberMappr uses the internet to connect volunteers to each other and to a group of expert analysts at UNOSAT with one common mission. The initiative gained support from Hewlett Packard and the Shuttleworth Foundation, which is known for its support to groundbreaking ideas especially in the area of data sharin...
In the wake of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed over 230,000 lives and left millions displaced, the urgent need for a coordinated disaster response system among international agencies, governments, and humanitarian organizations became glaringly evident. In response, the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) was established to bridge the gap between real-time disaster data and response capabilities. Integral to this effort was UNOSAT’s development of the Satellite Mapping Coordination System (SMCS) in 2010, following the Haiti earthqu...
27 February 2024, Geneva, Switzerland - In 2023, UNOSAT faced challenges and achieved milestones. Our mapping team was activated for complex emergencies over 107 times in 60 countries worldwide and provided 634 products and services. Across the globe, our emergency mapping service has provided life-saving information to devastated areas affected by conflicts and disasters triggered by natural hazards., In 2023, we went on leveraging our expertise to address multipolar crises and crosscutting issues in different thematic areas, from defending human rights to safeguarding end...
18 November 2020, Geneva, Switzerland – UNOSAT delivered a week-long training in Serrekunda, The Gambia, on the use of Earth Observation (EO) and Geospatial Information Technologies (GIT) applications to support operational planning and decision-making for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Resilience to government officials in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (MoHERST) and the UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries., The Gambia’s geographical location exposes the country to climate-related h...
31 August 2020, Geneva, Switzerland - Over the summer, UNOSAT introduced an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based method in its operational emergency mapping service. By reducing the process to a fraction of the time normally needed.
"This fully automated processing method is a game changer for humanitarian rapid mapping operations and a great tool for national disaster management authorities”, Einar Bjørgo, Director, UNOSAT.
Thanks to its extensive experience in rapid mapping, UNOSAT has collected a vast library of historical flood datasets, which ar...
2 October 2020, Geneva, Switzerland – In September, UNOSAT hosted the Regional Technical Webinar Series on Flood Forecasting, Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Information Technology (GIT) for Flood Risk Management for ECOWAS member states. This is part of a wider effort to support the ECOWAS region in building resilience to the flood events it is facing.
In the past weeks, UNOSAT’s rapid mapping services were requested for flood events in Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde and Niger, three ECOWAS member states. Disastrous floods caused by heavy monsoon rains are not only occurri...