Hosna is a 19-year-old Afghan alumna of UNITAR’s 2021 digital upskilling programme, and she is distressed about the gender gap in Afghanistan. Hosna was attending university in Kabul when the Afghan regime changed overnight, in August 2021. Fearing for her safety, she fled to Iraq, where she now continues her undergraduate studies. Hosna worries about her sister and friends back home.

Maureen Nduta was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. Having lived in the city all her life, she wanted a fresh experience and moved to Mombasa in the coastal region. Her plans were all set: first get a small restaurant running, then start a small farm to supply produce for the restaurant, and later on enrol for a business degree. Everything seemed to be going to plan. Then COVID-19 happened.

March 2022 – Raghad Hav started with a small idea and brought it to life with the help of the 2019 UNITAR training programme Empowering Social Entrepreneurs and Youth Leaders. Raghad founded She Codes Too, where she teaches Iraqi women to code.

“Would be beneficial to repeat such training programs before every deployment and non-medical members should be included.”

“I have applied the mindfulness skill and also the stress management techniques. My approach to situations and circumstances has also been modified as I try to incorporate cultural diversity and my approach interacting with my colleagues.”

Amaraa Erdenebaatar, a diplomat of Mongolia, learned skills to become a better negotiator in the 2021 UNITAR Hiroshima Training Programme on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. Mongolia is the only country in the world with a self-declared nuclear-weapon-free status. Their status has been recognized internationally. The online UNITAR training combines theory with practice. The theory is taught by world-renowned experts. Participants also meet with hibakusha (atomic bombing survivors). The course ended with an online conference simulation. Participants negotiated a paragraph of an NPT Foreign Ministers Communiqué. Amaraa hopes to meet his course mates in person one day. He will continue promoting security and disarmament to make the world safer for his children.

Fabiola is a resident doctor of neonatology at Centro Hospitalario Pereira Rossel (CHPR) in Uruguay but she is originally from Bolivia. During her studies in Uruguay, Fabiola had an experience at the hospital that made her realize the importance of surgical obstetrician processes and the need to foster these processes in her home country.

Ali was able to use the information from his own country to make informed judgements on how to negotiate and manage tax decisions for the population according to their business sector.

Passion and prayers – that’s how Everlyn Fiualakwa of the Solomon Islands got into disaster risk management. Everlyn had just graduated from university and was looking for a job when an 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Temotu Province, on 6 February 2013. A tsunami followed, killing 10 people. Reading about the disaster in the papers, Everlyn knew then what she wanted to do with her life: to help communities in her country become better prepared to deal with emergencies.

National ownership to monitor and achieve the SDGs is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda. However, many National Statistical Offices (NSO) face challenges in monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the SDGs. These challenges include the complexity of measuring certain problems and building relevant indicators, limited statistical capacity to monitor identified indicators, the lack of tools to facilitate the use of available information, and coordination difficulties experienced by stakeholders in producing, storing, and using the data, to name just a few.