The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Convention of Independent Financial Advisors (CIFA) – a non-profit Swiss Foundation based in Geneva – are launching an innovative training partnership on ‘Ethics and Finance’ with a view to ‘moralizing’ the finance-sector and protecting investor interests in the wake of the international financial

Africa region
5-8 April 2011, Nairobi, Kenya - Following the request by the African region at its meeting held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire in January 2010 in which participants called for the region to meet in early 2011 to prepare for the first meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG), UNITAR in conjunction with the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) Secretariat held an African regional meeting on SAICM and a UNITAR workshop on nanotechnologies and manufactured nanomaterials in Nairobi, Kenya from 5 to 8 April 2011.

UNITAR and the Geneva-based LALIVE law firm conducted a new e-learning course on “Introduction to Investment Arbitration” from March 14 to April 15, 2011.

4-5 May 2011, Niamey, Republic of Niger - A two-day workshop to launch enabling activities for national implementation of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) was held in Niamey, Republic of Niger from 4 to 5 May 2011.

UNOSAT has long embraced public engagement to improve satellite applications and mapping technology. Already in 2006, UNOSAT, CERN and the University of Geneva joined hands to explore the potential of participatory mapping using CERN’s experiences on collaborative computing and collaborative thinking in particle physics. In July 2006 the first crowdsourcing experiment goes public with the name of Africa@Home.

4-6 May 2011, Estoril, Portugal - This year’s Estoril debate that traditionally convenes global thinkers to discuss globalization challenges took place on 4-6 May 2011.

10-12 May 2011, Bergen, Norway. During the 2011 GDACS Stakeholders Meeting, a crowd-sourcing application for geo-tagged photos was released to the disaster management and early responders community.

UNOSAT is increasingly active in both crowdsourcing and geo-tagging.

12-13 May 2011, Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAR, the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Professional Standards Committee and the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) held a meeting in Geneva to plan the development and implementation of a new programme on risk-based approach to financial audit.

The International Law Programme is implementing the Spanish version of its series of e-courses on International Environmental Law (IEL) due to the high demand from Latin American Countries for this kind of training.