Stories from Our Beneficiaries

In 2016, UNITAR provided training, learning and knowledge-sharing services to close to 40,000 individuals who mostly come from developing countries. We are pleased that this figure has increased by 9.4% since 2015, but we are also interested to know how our training and learning activities are impacting the lives of our beneficiaries at individual level, and how we can contribute to further improve their knowledge and skills. Thus, we interviewed some of our beneficiaries, and in this edition, we would like to highlight four stories.

Enjoy reading!

Bhutanese Children on a Mission to Lighten their Load on the Planet

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.

Conflict Resolution with Former Child Soldiers and High-Risk Youth Focused Training in Colombia

Following the recent signing of a peace agreement, which ended decades of ongoing violence and armed conflict in Colombia, new and already established local organizations are helping displaced and marginalized youth reintegrate into families and communities. More than 7.2 million people in Colombia have been displaced internally, due to the conflict, with a portion of those being youth exposed to different risk factors including former child soldiers. Many of those high-risk youth are now receiving help at the Ciudad Don Bosco Salesian Center in Medellin, Colombia.

UNITAR Fellow Learning Management and Leadership Skills to Sustainably Develop South Sudan

Ms. Christina Pita Lukudu is a legal counsel working for the Directorate of Public Prosecution in the Ministry of Justice of South Sudan, the world’s newest nation. She was among a group of Fellows who participated in the first cycle of the UNITAR South Sudan Fellowship Programme, launched in September 2015. Ms. Lukudu’s country, South Sudan, continues to face numerous challenges in its efforts toward becoming sustainably developed and politically stable.

Helping farmers with GIS for better harvests and improved use of grazing lands for cattle

When Mr. Jully Odhiambo Ouma was recommended by his director to attend the UNITAR training on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), he was a Master Degree student in Meteorology at the University of Nairobi, Kenya and a research assistant at Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) within the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). At that time, he was making meteorological prediction maps about the probability amounts of rain, using a basic graphic software. The probabilities were presented in a way that was often difficult for local farmers and cattle herders to use effectively.

Announcements

Crea4Dev Open Online Course

The Creativity for Development (Crea4Dev) Open Online Course has entered its 10th week this Monday, with more than 700 participants coming from 118 countries having registered until now. The course, an initiative of UNITAR and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was developed to raise awareness on the value of creativity and culture as the pillars of sustainable development.

57th Session of UNITAR's Board of Trustees Concludes

Looking forward, UNITAR will continue to grow and strengthen its programmatic activities, with the Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda firmly at the core of UNITAR's functions and objectives. This is the vision as articulated by UNITAR Executive Director, Nikhil Seth, at the recent 57th Session of UNITAR's Board of Trustees (BoT) held in Geneva from 17 - 18 November 2016.

New Climate Change Learning Modules on Health and Cities Now Available Online!

UN CC:Learn is pleased to announce the launch of two new specialized introductory learning modules on "Climate Change and Cities" and "Climate Change and Human Health". These modules were developed with support from UN-Habitat and WHO respectively. They extend the UN CC:Learn Introductory Course on Climate Change, which includes a core set of 6 basic modules.

Partnerships

First Regional Training on Evaluation for the SDGs by UNITAR and UNDP Bangkok

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.

UNITAR Delivers Three Course Series with Columbia University

The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) partnered with Columbia University for a series of courses entitled, “Conflict Resolution, Mediation and Negotiation”. The 2016 series was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations. Their generous contribution offered fellowships to members of the Forum of Small States (FOSS). The series was taught by two professors from the Columbia Law School, Professor Alexandra Carter and Professor Shawn Watts, whose trainings included over 60 delegates, predominantly from FOSS members states.

UNECE joins the UN CC:Learn Partnership!

Climate change is a global phenomenon, and all regions of the world are contributing to it and are likely to be affected by it. It is for this reason that the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has been working for several year on the issue.

UN CC:Learn Becomes a Key Partner of the ESD

Successful Partnership between UNITAR and the Gulf Cooperation Council in 2016

The partnership between UNITAR and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was successfully launched with a first component in July in Riyadh, and followed by two-weeks in September in Geneva. The main goal of the cooperation was to strengthen the knowledge and expertise of employees from the Gulf Cooperation Council and strengthen their skills to better understand and engage in multilateral decision-making processes.

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