The University of Victoria (UVic) and the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR) announced today the establishment of the first CIFAL—International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders—on North America’s West Coast. CIFAL Victoria, based at UVic, is only the second such UN training centre in Canada.

22 March 2022, Hiroshima, Japan – UNITAR Division for Prosperity is hosting an online conference "Empower the Youth: Fostering Inclusive Entrepreneurship in Iraq" in partnership with The Station and KAPITA. The 2-hour session will cover entrepreneurship trends through technology and innovation to promote and support an inclusive entrepreneurship especially for migrants, women, and the youth, regardless of one’s social and economic background.

18 March 2022, Hiroshima, Japan – UNITAR Division for Prosperity held a two-day workshop in Baghdad, Iraq, last week, as part of its COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme: Mobilising Resilient Entrepreneurs to address food insecurity, public health, and unemployment – for youth in Iraq. This is the first time UNITAR's Division for Prosperity held an in-person workshop since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and marks the start of a new “hybrid” training model. Nineteen entrepreneurs attended the Baghdad workshop from various regions of Iraq. They were the top performers selected from among 181 learners who have developed their business ideas since the beginning of the programme in August 2021. The 19 entrepreneurs joined a hackathon, and pitched their ideas to their mentors and peers. The participants are further shaping their innovative projects up to the end of March 2022.

UN SDG:Learn is very glad to announce the launching of the Second Series of the UNSDGLearn Blog, "SMEs and the Implementation of the SDGs".

This Series will shine a light on Small and Mediums Enterprises (SMEs), their realities and the challenges they face as well as their philosophies, level of involvement and opportunities in regards to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This self-paced Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has been developed by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It aims to build the capacity of countries to foster policy coherence by anchoring the SDGs in the national budgets; develop nationally tailored approaches, apply best practices and tools to align budgeting with SDGs and national priorities, and enhance the Parliaments’ engagement.

A recent feature on the UN SDG:Learn platform now offers users a way to customize their learning experience!

A self-assessment provides an outlook on the users’ current knowledge and skills in regards to eight key competencies crucial to achieving the SDGs.

For its second GEAR (Gather, Evaluate, Accelerate and Refine) cycle, Crowd4SDG is supporting projects centred on Climate Change (SDG 13) and Gender (SDG 5). Participants are challenged "to develop a project that tackles these SDGs using crowdsourcing: information gathered or actions taken by large numbers of ordinary citizens", addressing some pressing issues.

Crowdsourced data, and more particularly gender and sex-disaggregated data, is extremely valuable as it can help highlight the gendered experiences of women and men facing climate change and fill in data gaps.

16 March 2022, Geneva, Switzerland - Five women tell their climate stories on how they have been transforming their communities towards a climate-resilient society. In addition, the article presents the trainings on women and climate change available through UN CC:Learn platform.

On March 16th, 2022 UNITAR opened CIFAL Doha, this long-awaited center is the 23rd center to join the global network.

As part of an ongoing commitment to achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls, UNITAR has partnered with the Premier League, Premier League Charitable Foundation and Sport Relief to create ‘Changemakers,’ a leadership and empowerment programme for self-identifying young women and girls aged 11 - 18.