On Friday, 16 January 2009, the UNU Office of Communications held the fifth in its ongoing series of Media/NGO Gatherings.

On 1 January 2009, the United Nations University combined the UNU Environment and Sustainable Development Programme and UNU Peace and Governance Programme to create the UNU Institute for Sustainability and Peace (UNU-ISP).

While there are many peace institutes and environmental institutes around the world, UNU-ISP is unique in that its innovative approach to sustainability combines both topics. UNU-ISP aspires to achieve a greater understanding of the broad, intersecting themes that extend across three of the most-pressing issues on the UN agenda: (i) global change and sustainability, (ii) international cooperation and development, and (iii) peacebuilding and security.

UNU’s Our World 2.0 web magazine has won the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Blog Design. In the field of 10 finalists, Our World 2.0 received 31% of the votes, 4% more than the second-place finisher.

The Weblog Awards are the world’s largest blog competition. In 2008, more than 933,000 votes were cast in 48 categories over seven days of…

In December 2008, the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security celebrated the fifth anniversary of its establishment in Bonn, Germany, with the publication of the report Five Years: UNU in Bonn.

In November, the UNU and UNCCD signed a memorandum of understanding to combine resources aimed at tackling the mounting challenge of forced migration caused by desertification, land degradation and drought.

The United Nations University Vice Rectorate in Europe — in collaboration with UNU Vice-Rector Govindan Parayil, who is in charge of e-learning at the UNU Headquarters, and the UNU Media Studio — hosted a strategic workshop on 26 and 27 November 2008 at the UN Campus in Bonn.

This two-day workshop explored the role of e-learning at…

The UNU-ViE is helping to implement a project aimed at introducing e-learning into East African universities in the area of watershead management education.

The UNU’s Environmental Monitoring and Governance in the Asian Coastal Hydrosphere project was established 12 years ago with support from Japan’s Shimadzu Corp.

The UNU’s first Our World 2.0 VideoBrief documentary, “The Electric Sunflower”, looks at Japanese ex-racecar driver Yoshio Takaoka and his quest to develop and market electric cars.

In a lecture at UNU Centre, Colombian vice president Francisco Santos discussed the devastating effects that cocaine production has on the environment of Colombia.

The focus of the 2008 UN Day celebrations, in Tokyo on 24 October, was on the range of activities by which the United Nations is addressing the many problems of climate change.