The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) has agreed to an unprecedented partnership with the Arab Gulf Program for Development (AGFUND), which will be concluded today as part of the Fifth AGFUND Development Forum. Both organizations, represented by Mr. Nikhil Seth, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNITAR, and by Mr. Nasser B. Al-Kahtani, Executive Director of the AGFUND, will sign a Memorandum of Understanding based on mutual trust and in spirit of cooperation. The official signing will be the preamble of the “Symposium on the Role of Financial Inclusion in Achieving the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development”, organized by the AGFUND and taking place today at the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva.

“We need to find different ways of talking to each other about climate change, rather than leaving this to formal education, and the best way to do this is to start young.”

30 young South Sudanese professionals took part in a UNITAR workshop in Hiroshima last month, as a continuation of the UNITAR South Sudan Fellowship Programme: Entrepreneurship and Leadership Youth Training, a six-month specialized capacity-building training programme for select junior to mid-career level professionals. Focusing on project development and implementation, this year’s Fellowship trained 30 South Sudanese Fellows and Coaches, including 13 women, from the public sector, private sector, academic institutions, and civil society organizations. 

UNITAR is organising a learning conferences on “holistic approaches for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda” for African Least Development Countries (LDCs). This conference will specifically target government officials from the 17 English-speaking African LDCs and will take place in Abuja, Nigeria on 1-2 March 2017.

Avoiding an ‘ecological credit crunch’ requires training and education for new skills and a change in attitudes to enable countries to leapfrog towards sustainable consumption and production practices. Children in Bhutan are proving to be valuable agents in this process.

“Domestic resources can mobilise a more immediate, nationally-driven response to climate change, and when aligned with external funding sources, can gain a much greater impact.”

By Sara Tchaparian // 14 November 2016 // Climate Finance

22 December 2016, Geneva, Switzerland – Engaging stakeholders is a tremendously important step to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. If we are to succeed in implementing them, everyone must be on board. UNITAR and United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) partnered to develop a facilitated online course for government officials in charge of the mainstreaming and review of the SDGs. The first session of this course took place from 5 to 21 December 2016 and received enthusiastic feedback from participants throughout the world.

26 – 27 October 2016, Bangkok, Thailand – A first Regional Training Workshop on “Developing National Evaluation Capacities to Support the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda” was jointly held by UNITAR and UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub on 26-27 October 2016 in Bangkok, back-to-back with the major Regional SDG Knowledge Exchange Forum. The workshop was organized in collaboration with other UN agencies and partners, including professional evaluation networks, and was attended by 30 participants, mainly government officials, UN staff and representatives of CSOs and VOPEs, primarily from six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan and Philippines.

Following a series of events that have been jointly organized between UNITAR and the Institut Diplomatique et des Relations Internationales (IDRI) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Algeria, UNITAR’s Multilateral Diplomacy Programme held a three-day leadership seminar for 17 Algerian diplomats and officials. The long-standing and fruitful collaboration with IDRI has reinforced the individual and institutional capacities of officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, particularly in the domain of multilateral diplomacy.

15 July 2016, New York. – As the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development (HLPF) prepares for its first round of 22 national voluntary presentations (NVPs) on 19-20 July, UNITAR brought together a panel of eminent experts to discuss the ways in which these discrete, global-level Government-led presentations could be better linked to strong, regular and inclusive national and subnational review processes. The learning session entitled “National reviews and M&E systems for the SDGs” was the second event organized by UNITAR as part of the UNDESA-UNITAR SDGs Learning, Training and Practice Center providing for a valuable, well-attended knowledge-sharing space on the sidelines of the Forum. More than 100 participants benefitted from the opportunities provided by the two UNITAR’s learning sessions.