16 August 2021, Hiroshima, Japan – UNITAR has been following the situation in Afghanistan with great concern. We ask for the protection of life and the safety of all the people of Afghanistan, irrespective of gender, creed, or affiliation, and that humanitarian assistance be given to those in need. We stand with the citizens of Afghanistan in the hope that humanity prevails in these trying times.

11 August 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - Despite the many challenges brought forth in the past months, the team of the Multilateral Diplomacy Programme Unit (MDPU) has grown, quasi-doubling its size compared to pre-pandemic times. Here is how they managed to keep connected with each other!

03 August 2021, Geneva, Switzerland – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the General Secretariat of the Andean Community (CAN) signed a cooperation agreement to formalize their joint efforts to provide training and capacity-building for the improvement of road safety in the Andean region.

As part of the AGFUND and UNITAR Global Learning Platform on Financial Inclusion initiative, two e-workshops were organized to enhance the capacities of professionals in the areas of financial inclusion and sustainable development. The e-workshops "Financial inclusion and sustainable development" and "Training of Trainers for financial inclusion" were delivered in November and December 2020, over four weeks each. The e-workshops targeted professionals working in microfinance or financial institutions from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

This 4-week online course on "Agri-food Export Promotion Policy and Practical Tools" will be Expert-facilitated and free of charge, but limited slots are available. Successful participants receive a Certificate of Completion from UNITAR and FAO. Registration is available at: https://aep3t.unitar.org/

16 July 2021, Hiroshima, Japan – Dai Tamesue, two-time World Championships bronze medallist in the 400m hurdles, was appointed UNITAR Goodwill Ambassador in July 2021. “I am committed to training Asian athletes and fostering friendship among them, so I resonate with UNITAR’s activities. I look forward to promoting its missions,” said Mr. Tamesue at the online press conference held on 14 July 2021.

15 July 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - The digital world has become an everyday part of our lives: at the office, at home, in government, in entertainment and the news. Almost anyone on the planet can now learn about, and do things, that were impossible but a few years ago.

Over the past decade or two, increasing efforts have been directed to promote gender equality and empowerment of women in all sectors of society, including women’s participation in leadership and decision-making positions. To contribute to this common objective, the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and UNITAR organised a series of three e-workshops on gender, women’s leadership and mentoring in November and December 2020. The series aimed to strengthen female leaders’ confidence, resilience and leadership capacities, and targeted women and men in leadership positions, with special attention to those working in employers’ and business organisations.

The Arab Gulf Programme for Development (AGFUND) and UNITAR launched the Global Learning Platform on Financial Inclusion in October 2019. The initiative aims to enhance capacities on financial management and financial inclusion. It is oriented towards finance practitioners, particularly in micro-credit financial institutions and in government entities fostering financial inclusion of women and young entrepreneurs, as well as officers in governments, NGOs and other civil society organizations. Since its launch, AGFUND and UNITAR have delivered eight online courses and two e-workshops on the platform, all free of charge, targeting participants from least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island development states; especially from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. To increase the likelihood of reaching the intended beneficiaries, a selection process was carried out for each learning event and the platform was made available in desktop version and through a mobile app.

12 July 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - Achieving SDGs is the responsibility of not only governments but of everyone else – every citizen. There are several ways to do so. Support with data collection and monitoring of progress on SDG implementation is one of them. National Statistical Offices (NSO) have been experimenting with different new sources of data to bridge the data gaps to be able to track progress on the SDGs. This side event, on 12 July 2021, on the sidelines of the 2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) aimed to demonstrate how exactly citizens can make their contributions through innovative solutions and how such citizen science or citizen-generated data can be of use to the National Statistical Offices (NSOs). The event was organized by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) together with members of the Crowd4SDG Consortium, University of Geneva, Politecnico di Milano, CERN, Spanish National Research Council, and Université de Paris.