3 November 2020 - COVID-19 has led to a parallel pandemic of disinformation that directly impacts lives and livelihoods around the world. Falsehoods and misinformation have proven deadly and sowed confusion about life-saving personal and policy choices. We are in the midst of a disinfodemic.

30 October 2020, Geneva, Switzerland, New York, United States - In late 2016, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNITAR-UNOSAT entered into a three-year collaboration period with the purpose of developing a web-mapping interface for the monitoring and evaluation of 15 UNDP projects focused on infrastructure rehabilitation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The interface was customized to feature individual story maps depicting the project sites, which would convey the different projects’ objectives, activities, and their impact in an intuitive manner using the ArcGIS Online system. From this, the ‘Geolocalized Maps and Satellite Imagery Analysis’ interface emerged to include engaging story maps for 156 locations, in 7 countries: Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan.

23 October 2020, Bonn, Germany - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is now the 24th and newest member of the UN family in Bonn. UNITAR, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, opens its third out-posted office in the UN City in Germany, following the offices in the United States (New York) and Japan (Hiroshima). The Institute has several project offices and affiliated training centres around the world.

Governments around the world have been at the forefront in the fight against global crises, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, the disruptive nature of the COVID-19 crisis has exposed a deeper level of vulnerability in our communities, by creating unprecedented socio-economic and cultural implications. During the crisis, public servants have been faced with the unparalleled urgency to formulate new ways of thinking, adapt to new realities and prepare for the unknown future.

Due to this urgent need to support Government officials, UNITAR’s Division for People and Social Inclusion is launching its new course on Monday the 2nd of November 2020, entitled: ‘Crisis Management for Public Officials: The Skills Necessary to Effectively Manage a Crisis and Continually Deliver to the People you Serve’ (also known as: ‘Crisis Management for Public Officials: Basic Skills’).

16 October 2020, Geneva, Switzerland – UNOSAT and UNDP, longstanding partners, are cooperating on a new satellite imagery analysis application, through the production of maps used in the validation of the civil and electoral registries in Vanuatu’s 83 islands.

5 October 2020, Geneva, Switzerland – UNITAR, in partnership with the Geneva-Tsinghua Initiative, the University of Geneva and the Tsinghua University, launch the SDG Innovation Bootcamps, a series of short programmes (online or hybrid) aimed at a new generation of impact entrepreneurs, willing to collectively act in order to identify, delineate and address outstanding challenges for the SDGs, through open innovation.

UNOSAT delivered the Advanced Training on Earth Observation (EO) and Geospatial Information Technology (GIT) for Climate Resilience in Fiji and Vanuatu. For this week-long training, delivered as part of the capacity development activities of the CommonSensing project, UNOSAT adopted a blended-type of delivery method.

2 October 2020, Geneva, Switzerland – 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.

1 October 2020, Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAR Division for People and Social Inclusion launched ‘Coming Up Next’, a new UNITAR learning podcast, on 1st October. Coming Up Next, in collaboration with the CIFAL Global Network, and the Global Challenges Forum Foundation, is part of the 1M2030 youth initiative. The learning podcast focuses on providing a platform to celebrate and further encourage global youth leadership in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

28 September 2020, Jeju, South Korea- The International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders in Jeju (CIFAL Jeju) successfully concluded a series of learning webinars on “The European Green Deal”. The webinars aimed to introduce the Green Deal policies at the national and local levels for countries transitioning to more environmentally sustainable options. The Green Deal policy package aims to promote new development models that tackle pressing issues around climate change.