7 October 2022, Nairobi, Kenya - KCB Foundation and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) have partnered to promote the use of electric motorbikes by Boda Boda riders in Kenya. This is an effort towards accelerating the transition to a low-carbon resilient economy and enable the transition of 25% of the total loan portfolio to green investments by 2025, as part of the KCB Net Zero ambition.

October 2022, Hiroshima, Japan – What happens when disasters strike amid conflict? “No one anticipates or wishes for a war or an epidemic but having a prepared [disaster risk reduction] mindset, will considerably reduce the risk of a disaster,” says Marie-Claire Tohnain, who is studying to be a medical doctor in Cameroon.

As part of their well-established partnership, UNITAR) and Takeda, a global pharmaceutical leader and an active member of the United Nations Global Compact, are pleased to announce a new joint initiative focused on strengthening countries’ healthcare systems to meet patients’ needs for plasma and plasma-derived therapies.

27 September 2022, Plock, Poland – The International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders (CIFAL) in Plock hosted the “City Coders Hackathon Plock” on 25-26 September, bringing together 81 participants, mostly high schoolers and university students to develop an application that would respond to the needs of the city residents.

“I had a series of ‘awakenings’ throughout my life”, reveals Bárbara A. Smith straightaway. One of the most impactful was when she scuba dived for the very first time. “When we submerged, I discovered a myriad of colours in the corals, an unbelievable variety of fishes, sea turtles, and immense peace. It was as if I found ‘another world within ours’. I cannot put in words what it feels like to discover such an environment for the very first time, but I believe it must be a very similar experience to being in outer space.”

"Even though we have traffic lights, cameras, signs and enough space for everyone, there is always an element of surprise. We can redesign things to predict those risks, but everything comes back to outreach and education. This course focuses on that."

In an effort to promote global progress toward a more sustainable, peaceful, and prosperous world, UNITAR has been working since its founding in 1963 to bridge the capacity gaps that exist for individuals and institutions. By developing tailored learning solutions that facilitate the creation of flexible and intellectually stimulating environments for learning and collaboration and encourage participation, dialogue, local ownership, and knowledge base expansion for sustainable impact, UNITAR’s Division for Peace helps to accelerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16 of Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions as well as the Agenda 2030.

You want to create a new exciting online course that will be taken by hundreds - or even thousands - of participants from all over the world. You want your project to have the greatest possible impact and reach, and to do so, the course needs to be available in different languages. But how do you go about it?

For the Division for People and Social Inclusion, multilingualism is key for the expansive outreach of our activities and events. Mr. Alex Mejia, Director of UNITAR’s People’s Division and Social Inclusion explains, “it is fundamental to embrace multilingualism for two main reasons. One because we are the United Nations, we are supposed to be multilingual, and two, we cannot teach other people to embrace multilingualism if we do not embrace it ourselves.”

Quito, Ecuador, 20 September 2022 - UNITAR in close collaboration with CIFAL Ecuador have continued to rollout the Autosobriety Training Programme to Prevent Drink Driving to expand its reach across different Provinces in Ecuador. Over 800 individuals working in different areas in the field of road safety were trained throughout 5 workshops that took place in the Provinces of Santo Domingo, Cotopaxi, Cuenca, Loja, and Portoviejo between June and July 2022.