8 December 2025, Hiroshima, Japan - When Mohseen Riaz-Ud-Dean was a child, Cyclone Kina swept across Fiji and flooded Mohseen’s home. “My house was underwater”, he recalls. “We had to relocate … [take] all the belongings we had with us to a higher level.” The experience taught him what it means to grow up in a vulnerable island nation and the importance of preparedness.

5 November 2025, Hiroshima, Japan – When Margo Soltis, a police officer from New Zealand, joined UNITAR’s Hiroshima disaster risk reduction training, she did not expect to be so shaken by the disaster experiences of Japan. Neither did she expect to walk away with a new mission: to equip children with the knowledge and skills to respond confidently in emergencies.

20 October 2025, Hiroshima, Japan – Teri Elbon serves as an Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Marshall Islands, where she oversees multilateral affairs and coordinates the RMI’s participation in international engagements. In 2024, she joined the UNITAR Hiroshima Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Training Programme to strengthen her capacity as a diplomat and ensure the Marshall Islands’ voice is heard in global efforts to advance nuclear disarmament and promote lasting peace.

1 September 2025, Hiroshima, Japan - Mohammed Albadri is a fresh graduate of biomedical engineering from southern Iraq. He wants to make changes to the food insecurity problem of his country, which leads to his vision using hydrogels to save water and make the agriculture system more sustainable. The UNITAR “Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Promoting Food Security and Economic Development in Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon” training programme helped Mohammed to gain skills to help make his vision come true.

15 August 2025, Hiroshima, Japan – Growing up in Asyut, Egypt, Ahmed Hassanein was no stranger to the struggles of smallholder farmers. He witnessed firsthand how low productivity and financial instability pushed many farmers to abandon their land in search of alternative livelihoods. This reality planted the seed of a lifelong mission for Ahmed: to bridge the gap between traditional farming practices and modern sustainable agriculture.

August 2025, Hiroshima, Japan – “The one-week course [of the Program for Global Human Resource Development for Peacebuilding and Development] was intense yet engaging, providing an opportunity to reflect on my career journey thus far…This experience, along with connecting with global cohorts, will undoubtedly be an asset in my long-term career,” says Akiko Hasegawa, Finance Officer in the Budget, Performance Review, and Strategic Planning (BPS) Vice Presidency at the World Bank. She joined the Bank in early 2025 in pursuit of her goal to strengthen results on the ground by enhancing the efficiency of the financial and operations management, which she believes will ultimately contribute to a better world.

Climate change has challenged traditional livelihood strategies, such as agriculture and pastoralism, requiring alternative, resilient livelihood options. To develop capacities that can face these new realities, the UNITAR Division for Prosperity organized the “Developing green livelihoods for women and youth in Africa: Strengthening food security, supporting climate resilient economies” programme. This Impact Story reveals that the programme was useful to participants' needs and that the majority were able to use what they had learned, including participants who started the implementation of their business ideas or project proposals.

1 July 2025, Hiroshima, Japan — A group of passionate alumni from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Early Warning System (EWS) training programme is turning learning into action in the Solomon Islands.

1 July 2025, Hiroshima, Japan - For seven years, Mariya Asagi from Japan worked in educational and humanitarian NGOs in Afghanistan, Laos, and Myanmar. Motivated by her goal of joining the United Nations, she participated in the Primary Course of The Programme for Global Human Resource Development for Peacebuilding and Development in early 2025, sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and held online and in Hiroshima and Tokyo, Japan, in January and February 2025.

19 June 2025, Hiroshima, Japan – Jacques Dembele is a Monitoring and Evaluation officer at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Guinea-Bissau, where he works to promote democracy, health, economic development and climate change. He joined the Primary Course of the Program for Global Human Resource Development for Peacebuilding and Development to further his skills for a career in international organizations.