September 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of people, and countries’ economies in unprecedented ways. The governments’ efforts to achieve the global 2030 Agenda have halted or even rolled back as a result of the global health crisis. A number of short-term measures had to be taken to respond to this health emergency and then address the recovery through significant money injections. This short-term response has, however, at times failed to account for mid-term and long-term effects and objectives. The need for a sustainable recovery as part of a more integrated and forward-looking vision has been broadly recognized by many countries and stakeholders as the basis for the achievement of the SDGs and national priorities.

With the hackathon, Enas became more inspired to continue promoting healthier lifestyles and cities’ renaturalization with her students. She has replicated some of the methodologies from the hackathon in her classes.

8 September, New York USA, virtual seminar – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Office in New York successfully launched the Joint Swiss-UNITAR Briefing on United Nations Budgetary Matters training series on Tuesday, 7th September 2021. The four-half day virtual training programme, co-organized with the Permanent Mission of Switzerland, caters to the needs of the incoming delegates of the United Nations General Assembly’s Fifth Committee. The first two sessions have directly benefited more than 100 delegates each session from numerous Member States.

7 September 2021, New York, USA – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) New York Office successfully implemented its two-day training, the “Transition Workshop for the 76th Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA),” in partnership with the Permanent Missions of Ecuador, Finland, and Malaysia. This workshop was organized to support the Office of the President of the General Assembly in its transition between the 75th and 76th OPGA, and to specifically facilitate opportunities for existing, former, and incoming OPGA staff to share experiences and best practices for a successful transition. This workshop marked UNITAR NYO’s first in-person training workshop since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and was attended by more than 30 delegates, following social distancing measures.

2 September 2021, Geneva, Switzerland – On 28 September 2021, UNITAR and the University of Geneva, co-chairing the University Global Coalition Working Group on Open Innovation for the SDGs, host a session on "Reinforcing the SDGs through open innovation" in the 2021 University Global Coalition Annual Conference "Building Connections and Action for the SDGs".

06 July 2021, New York, USA - On July 6, United Nations Institute for Training and Research in partnership with United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and United Nations Climate Change Convention (UNCCC) hosted the launch of their e-learning course Harnessing Climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Synergies.

12 July 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - Achieving SDGs is the responsibility of not only governments but of everyone else – every citizen. There are several ways to do so. Support with data collection and monitoring of progress on SDG implementation is one of them. National Statistical Offices (NSO) have been experimenting with different new sources of data to bridge the data gaps to be able to track progress on the SDGs. This side event, on 12 July 2021, on the sidelines of the 2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) aimed to demonstrate how exactly citizens can make their contributions through innovative solutions and how such citizen science or citizen-generated data can be of use to the National Statistical Offices (NSOs). The event was organized by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) together with members of the Crowd4SDG Consortium, University of Geneva, Politecnico di Milano, CERN, Spanish National Research Council, and Université de Paris.

7 July 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - On the 7th of July 2021, UNDESA and UNITAR, jointly with CANEUS, FILAC, UNOOSA and GNDR, organized a session entitled “Integrating recovery planning from COVID-19, building resilience and strengthening policy coherence towards the SDGs” as part of the SDGs Learning, Training & Practice Center’s learning sessions on the sidelines of the 2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). It was an opportunity to present the new UNDESA-UNITAR course “Integrated Recovery Planning and Policy Coherence Towards the SDGs” to policy-makers and other stakeholders.

31 May 2021, Geneva, Switzerland - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Open Geneva Association have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote the education and practice of open innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

27 May 2021, Geneva, Switzerland and Beijing, China - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the Geneva School of Economics and Management of the University of Geneva and the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set global standards for SDG Education and Open Innovation.