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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...
24 October 2024, Geneva, Switzerland - In September, Member States came together to adopt a visionary Pact for the Future aimed at aligning international efforts with contemporary realities and future challenges. Today, on UN Day, the six research and training institutes of the United Nations reaffirm their commitment to supporting the Pact of the Future through specialized knowledge, learning, research and training for the UN system – benefitting the world as a whole. The UN research and training organizations include the United Nations Interregional Crime and Ju...
17 December, Geneva, Switzerland – A landmark report providing the first detailed account of the devastating damage to the World Heritage Property of the Ancient City of Aleppo in the wake of years of armed conflict has been published by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and UNESCO.
The Ancient City of Aleppo is one of six Syrian World Heritage sites added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger in 2013. Five Years of Conflict: The State of Cultural Heritage in the Ancient City of Aleppo draws on satellite imagery assessment of a total of...
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 ...
The CommonSensing project is funded by the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) and aims to strengthen disaster risk reduction and climate change resilience in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu through 1) increasing national resource capacities in the use of Earth Observation (EO) solutions to address disaster risk reduction and climate change resilience by 2020, and 2) enhancing evidence-based decision making by using CS solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation (CCA).
The evaluation’s specific objectives are to 1) track the progress against...
An Independent Baseline Evaluation of the CommonSensing Project was published in June 2019. Using a mixed-methods approach, the baseline evaluation aimed to establish the project’s entry-level conditions on (a) climate information, (b) food security and agricultural production, (c) disaster risk reduction and (d) climate change. It included an in-depth analysis of documents and outputs produced in the first phase. The evaluation had several limitations, including:
Voluntary National Reviews not yet having been undertaken in two of the countries;
Communication challe...
The Inter-Organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC) brings together nine UN and multilateral organizations that aim to strengthen international cooperation on chemical safety and improve coordination of their own chemicals-related policies and activities through the IOMC.
The IOMC Toolbox for Decision Making in Chemicals Management Project is a logical response to increasing needs and demands from policymakers working within developing and transitional economies. The toolbox was developed to provide an easy, web-based access to a consolidated libr...
Independent evaluation of the Training and Advanced Training of West African Security Forces project
The “Training and Advanced Training of West African Security Forces” project aimed at supporting the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre (KAIPTC) in becoming the leading international centre for training, education and research in African peace and security, supporting the establishment of i) operating frameworks; ii) infrastructure and equipment; iii) training and mentoring; and iv) expanding partnerships, while being aware of the numerous international and regional partners to the centre.
The evaluation assessed the project against the six OECD/DAC criteria: rel...
Over the past several years there has been an increase in the number of joint master’s degree and other postgraduate diploma initiatives designed and implemented by UNITAR in collaboration with universities and other academic institutions. From 2018 to 2022, UNITAR implemented 31 joint programmes through six of its programme units and the CIFAL Global Network of affiliated training centres.
This evaluation assessed the joint master’s degrees and postgraduate programmes conducted by UNITAR in collaboration with academic partners. It examined the relevance, coherence, effec...
To ensure that field agencies, such as MSF, and UN entities have access to the most up to date information for the Horn of Africa, UNOSAT has been involving a growing number of volunteers who are actively improving baseline geographic information (typically names of places, type of structure, street names, etc). This also facilitates the work done at UNOSAT to accurately analyse the dynamic IDP situation on the ground in Mogadishu.
“Although the direct interaction with volunteer mappers is relatively new to us, we already see the benefits of combining event-specific crowd ...