The programme’s coaching component has helped those selected as coaches to enhance their hard skills and improve their soft skills, which they can sometimes implement in their workplaces.

The UNITAR Iraq Entrepreneurship and Leadership Youth Training Programme is a fellowship initiative that provides youth with skills in entrepreneurship and leadership to develop or strengthen local businesses that contribute to social and economic stability in their country. In this Impact Story, we review the extent to which participants have applied or transferred knowledge and skills from the programme and the challenges encountered by them and spotlight the experiences from three participants.

For the world to build back from the socioeconomic havoc wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, women’s leadership is more necessary than ever before. This International Women’s Day, UNITAR celebrates alumna who are leading to improve their lives and societies in fragile and developing states.

“My world drastically expanded when I gathered the courage to take this step. It was definitely worth it,” says second-year Takeda High School student Sakura OMURA, who became a 2020 UNITAR Youth Ambassador. UNITAR Hiroshima Office/Division for Prosperity, in collaboration with the UNITAR Association, annually runs the UNITAR Youth Ambassador programme for high school students in Hiroshima. UNITAR seeks to nurture these young people, who are expected to play an important role in the international community, by providing opportunities for exposure to the global community. Sakura was one of the 24 youth selected for the 2020 programme, which was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Natallia noted that more and more officials and experts in the field are completing FAO-UNITAR courses, which is also conducive for the promotion of new ideas at the national level.

“When you are equipped with knowledge you don’t remain the same. You talk with confidence because you have really learned, and know it is clearer and you talk based on evidence and at the point of knowledge”.

"We were stranded in the school, unable to move anywhere because the streets were submerged, and many people lost their lives. It is caused by Coral abstraction and cutting mangroves, but climate change is making the problem even worse".

In fact, sharing ideas with people with different professional backgrounds, beliefs, and from over ten different places of origin was one of Udeaku’s main learnings and had impacted her professional and personal life.

Hussein Naeem Hasan Naser: Hussein talks about how his participation in UNITAR's 2019 Iraq training programme helped him start his social business and how he was able to enhance his skills and mindset.

Kossiwa J. Tossoukpe is the founder of KESecurix - Diversity in Security, and a former police officer in Zurich, Switzerland. At age 21, she was the youngest in her police academy class, and the first Black woman to join the force. Kossiwa studied at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, where she obtained a Master's degree in International Relations and Global Security. She was also a Trainee at UNITAR's Division for Peace, supporting the pre-deployment training team. Kossiwa's consultancy firm focuses on enhancing and including the voices of female security consultants, and especially those of colour.