4 May 2026, Atlanta, USA – Large-scale high-profile governmental, cultural, sporting, or entertainment events such as the FIFA World Cup, G20s, Olympics and Paralympics, Super Bowls, Champions League finals attract significant visitors, bring important economic benefits and opportunities for improving urban development, while reducing environmental impact.

April 2026 - Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Saint Lucia face a persistent challenge: producing timely, accurate, and granular data to inform decision-making. Rapidly changing informal settlements, combined with limited statistical resources, make it difficult to maintain up-to-date population estimates and vulnerability assessments.
For Saint Lucia’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), the challenge became particularly visible when the 2022 population and household census was estimated to have a 23.3 per cent undercount rate. Based on listings and field experience, the CSO suspected that much of this undercount was concentrated in informal settlement areas, where housing patterns can change quickly between census cycles. These gaps are not only technical. They affect how services are planned, how risks are assessed, and how resources are allocated.

22 May 2026, New York, USA - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), in partnership with the University of Kansas School of Law and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, delivered a two-part online series titled Strengthening Pathways for Indigenous Peoples’ Representation at the UN on 9 and 16 April 2026.

28 April 2026, Budva, Montenegro - UNITAR in collaboration with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and support from the FIA Foundation, launched the Central and Eastern Europe edition of the Safe Mobility for All and For Life (SM4A4L) initiative. SM4A4L aims to equip FIA automobile clubs and local authorities with training, mentorship, and evidence-based actions to develop concrete projects that improve road safety for everyone.

28 April 2026, New York, USA – On 27 April 2026, UNITAR, with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Prefectural Governments, co-hosted a side event to the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The side event, titled “Nuclear Disarmament Obligation: Humanitarian, Development, and Peace” and led by the Government of Kazakhstan, featured a panel discussion of government representatives, experts and young people and aimed to identify actions that raise awareness of the humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons, support implementation of the NPT Action Plan and strengthen advocacy for nuclear disarmament.

23 April 2026, Hiroshima, Japan – Twelve youth from Hiroshima Prefecture gathered at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Hiroshima Project Office on 18 April to mark the launch of the 2026 “UNITAR Hiroshima Youth Ambassador Programme: Leaders for a New Era”.

18 April 2026, Siegen, Germany — In a working visit that signals a new chapter for the CIFAL Dakar Centre, Mayor Abass Fall, Chairperson of CIFAL Dakar, traveled to Germany accompanied by the Director of this CIFAL Centre, Mr. Mouhamed Diop, to explore one of the world's most celebrated models of technical and vocational education. The mission, centred on Germany's renowned Duale Ausbildung, the dual education system marks a significant strategic milestone in the Mayor's broader vision for a more modern, inclusive, and opportunity-driven Dakar.
Officially installed as Mayor in September 2025, Mr Abass Fall has outlined four strategic priorities: making Dakar an economically and socially inclusive city, an international capital, a hub of creativity and digital innovation, and a smart city focused on sustainability and quality of life. The visit to Germany is a direct expression of these priorities in action. The question put forward was how to build a training ecosystem that genuinely connects young people to economic opportunities is not abstract, it is one of the most consequential governance challenges Mayor Fall's administration faces.

Over the past years, the Tanzania Peacekeeping Training Centre (TPTC) has undergone a significant transformation: from a relatively low-profile national training institution to an increasingly recognized centre of reference for peacekeeping training in Africa. UNITAR’s support in 2025 contributed to accelerating this trajectory by reinforcing the centre’s institutional capacity, training methodologies, and ability to adapt to evolving operational demands.

15 April 2026, London, United Kingdom - Against a backdrop of mounting urgency around food security, sustainability, and behavioral change, CIFAL London has launched a purpose-built Hackathon to channel the creative and analytical energy of participants toward one of the most pressing, and most preventable challenges of our time: household food waste. Designed as a high-impact applied learning intervention, the event tasks interdisciplinary teams with moving from systemic understanding to concrete action, producing scalable, real-world solutions aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger.

Baku, Azerbaijan, 15 April 2026 — What began in 2023 as a landmark initiative to bridge the gender gap in technology across Türkiye has now crossed a national border. The Equal Opportunity in Technology programme arrived in Azerbaijan, reaching university students and educators for the first time and marking a significant milestone in the regional expansion of one of the most ambitious women's digital empowerment programmes to emerge from the Türkiye–UN partnership ecosystem.