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On this International Women’s Day, I am pleased to announce that I joined the International Gender Champions. Today, we must all answer the call to action to achieve a future where the rights, equality, and empowerment of all women and girls are fully realized. The theme, For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment., serves as a powerful reminder that gender equality is not just a goal—it is a necessity.Gender equality is fundamental to ending violence, ensuring safe and peaceful societies, building strong economies, and achieving sustainable development. A world...
As a curriculum or learning designer, few things are as heartbreaking as spending months crafting a course, only to witness low engagement, high dropout rates, and lacklustre response from your target learners. Unfortunately, disengagement is a widespread issue.Consider these statistics:Around 90% of online learners disengage with MOOCs (Reich, J., & Ruipérez-Valiente, J. A., 2019; Moore, R. L., & Blackmon, S. J., 2022). Approximately 20-30% of learners drop out of face-to-face courses (Rothkrantz, L., 2017).At least 39% of US university students...
Michelle Gyles-McDonnough, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Executive Director, UNITAROn 16 December 2024, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Michelle Gyles-McDonnough of Jamaica as the new Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). With more than 30 years’ experience in sustainable development, policy advocacy, international trade and international relations, and change management in complex bureaucracies, Ms. Gyles-McDonnough has held multiple leadership roles withi...
16 December 2024, New York, USA - United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Michelle Gyles-McDonnough of Jamaica as the new Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). She will officially assume her duties on 22 February 2025, succeeding Nikhil Seth of India, to whom the Secretary-General expressed profound gratitude for his dedication and contributions to the United Nations.With over 30 years of experience in sustainable development, policy advocacy, international trade, international rel...
22 February 2025, Geneva, Switzerland – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is pleased to announce that Michelle Gyles-McDonnough has officially assumed office as its new Executive Director. She succeeds Nikhil Seth of India, whose mandate concluded on 31 January 2025. Ms. Gyles-McDonnough brings over 30 years of experience in sustainable development, policy advocacy, international trade, and organizational change management. She has held key leadership roles within the United Nations, most recently serving as Director of the Sustainable Dev...
UNITAR's Division on NCD, Digital Health, and Capacity Building, in collaboration with The Defeat-NCD Partnership, partnered with Manchester Metropolitan University to deliver a workshop on preparing policy briefs based on alcohol consumption studies in the Republic of Rwanda, influencing national and international alcohol policies....
UNITAR's Division on NCD, Digital Health, and Capacity Building successfully supported the World Health Organization in modernizing its learning ecosystem in upgrading and migrating 130+ courses to its unified platform.This collaboration is a significant project that enhances global accessibility and standardizes learning for health professionals. By conducting a thorough review of existing courses and migrating them to a unified platform, the project ensures compliance with international best practices and quality standards, empowering health professionals with the es...
The Defeat-NCD Partnership, in collaboration with UNITAR, played a pivotal role in the High-Level Panel Discussion “From Words to Action for Better Noncommunicable Disease Outcomes,” held during the World Health Summit on 16 October 2022. This event served as a global platform to address the urgent need for concrete action in tackling the growing burden of NCD, bringing together distinguished representatives from governments, international organizations, academia, civil society, and the private sector.The discussion emphasized the transition from dialogue to tangible, measu...
The evaluation covered the period from January 2020 to October 2024 and aimed to identify good practices, challenges and lessons learned from current processes, mechanisms and structures in order to improve the timeliness of reporting, with a focus on identifying the root causes of delays and exploring opportunities to improve reporting timeliness. Specifically, the evaluation sought to determine whether factors such as project budget, duration, reporting workload, programme capacity and donor requirements correlated with delays in reporting. The evaluation also aimed to un...
In September 2022, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India and The Defeat-NCD Partnership, in collaboration with UNITAR, formalized their collaboration through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at reducing premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCD). The agreement focused on advancing Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 by scaling up NCD prevention, treatment, and healthcare access.The partnership emphasized capacity building in India and other low- and middle-income countries, scaling up NCD services thro...