18 October 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - With the theme on “Building the Smart City and Industrial Development for Sustainable Urbanization”, Global City Informatization Forum 2012 will be held on Monday, 29 October 2012 in Shanghai, China.

17 October 2012, Lodz, Poland - From 15-16 October 2012, UNITAR participated at the conference on "Safe NANO Innovations" regarding safety of nanomaterials.

17 October 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAR, in partnership with GIZ, the German Technical Cooperation, is launching a new session of the e-Learning course Sustainable Urban Mobility in Developing Countries, from 26 November 2012 to 15 March 2013.

8 October 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in partnership with SKL International, with the support of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will deliver an e-Learning course, “The SymbioCity Approach: Achieving Urban Sustainability in Asian Cities”, from 12 November 2012 to 15 February 2013.

25 September 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - Following recent heavy monsoon rains in Baluchistan, Punjab and Sindh provinces in Pakistan, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) activated the UNOSAT rapid mapping service to obtain satellite derived maps of the affected regions.

29 August 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - The Final Meeting of the Steering Committee of the GEF/UNEP/UNITAR Project “POPs Reporting, Monitoring and Information dissemination using Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs)” was held on 29-30 August 2012, in Geneva, Switzerland.  The meeting was held back-to-back with an awareness-raising meeting on PRTRs for NGOs and working sessions with the partner countries of the project.

September 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - During the period June-August 2012, numerous wildfires burned throughout pine and cork oak forests in northern Algeria, scorching more than 30,000 hectares across Algeria, destroying both forest and bush. The flames also burned houses in several provinces, especially in the east.
The Algerian Civil Protection service mobilised 15,000 fire fighters to suppress fires. According to the Algerian press fires in such a size had not been seen since Independence.

10 September 2012, Geneva, Switzerland — The concept of a green economy is receiving increasing international attention, as countries explore new patterns of development that take into account economic, social and environmental sustainability considerations. 

10 September 2012 New York, USA - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Sally Fegan-Wyles of Ireland as Acting Head of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Ms. Fegan-Wyles will replace Carlos Lopes, who has been appointed Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa. The Secretary-General is grateful to Mr. Lopes for his dedicated service to the United Nations and for his able leadership of both UNITAR and the United Nations Staff System College.