19 May 2026, Geneva, Switzerland - The UNITAR Global Water Academy (UGWA) co-hosted the African Regional Consultation for the UN Water Conference Academic Hub, co-convened with the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, and WaterNet. The consultation gathered academic, governmental, and practitioner stakeholders from across the continent to ensure that African priorities and knowledge are central to preparations for the 2026 UN Water Conference.

UNITAR and Gulf Colleges have launched a new hybrid Master’s Degree in Strategic Leadership and Artificial Intelligence to equip future leaders with strategic, ethical and practical AI capabilities in global governance and decision-making.

8 May 2026, Geneva, Switzerland - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) issued the 2025 Results Report. The report highlights the progress, partnerships and impact achieved throughout the year. Amid rising expectations for a more agile and impactful United Nations, UNITAR continued to strengthen capacities across Member States and among diverse stakeholders worldwide while advancing important institutional milestones, including the adoption of UNITAR’s new four-year Strategic Framework.

Since October 2023, the Gaza Strip has been living through one of the most severe and prolonged displacement crises of recent decades. Families who fled bombardment lost not only their homes but any prospect of returning to them. More than a million people came to settle in makeshift sites along the coastline, in public spaces, on school grounds, and on the edges of urban areas, sheltering in manufactured tents that offered little protection from the elements. With almost no intact housing available, families in tents on low-lying, near-sea-level ground faced acute exposure when winter arrived.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play a critical role in advancing sustainable development by shaping the knowledge, skills, and mindsets of present and future generations. Developed by UNITAR, UNESCO, and a collective of HEIs, the Leaders in Higher Education Alliance and Programme - for Accelerating Sustainability Transformations (LEAP-FAST) aimed to strengthen this role by fostering a global movement of sustainability leaders in higher education. The initiative comprises four components: a Leadership Dialogue, a Certificate Programme, an SDG Ambassadors' Programme, and Regional and National Spin-offs.

For more than 10 years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UN Satellite
Centre) have worked together on satellite-based monitoring of cultural and natural heritage affected by armed conflict and disasters resulting from natural or
human-made hazards. This partnership was formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2015 and subsequently strengthened through a series of joint agreements, funded by UN Member States, to monitor and safeguard cultural and natural heritage around the world. What began as ad-hoc assessments for Iraq and Syria has evolved into systematic, joint operations with rapid, global response capabilities.

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.

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.