UN System Staff College Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development

Created by the UN General Assembly in 2002, the UN System Staff College (headquartered in Turin, Italy) is mandated to serve as a system-wide knowledge management and learning institution, with a view to fostering a cohesive management culture across the United Nations.

The College’s programmes benefit from its close relationship with UN decision making bodies, allowing the College to identify the particular training demands of the agencies, funds and programmes, and respond to the far-reaching reform agenda that cuts across the UN system. In developing and implementing its programmes, the College collaborates with renowned experts, academic institutions, local administrations and UN partners. In this way, the College brings innovative thinking, academic rigour, and context relevancy to bear in building staff capacity to address the most critical issues facing the UN.

In September 2015, governments agreed on a new development agenda, “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, with a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at its core. The new agenda strives for a world that is just, equitable and inclusive, committing stakeholders to work together to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth, social development and environmental protection.

Equipping the UN with a clear roadmap to harness and transfer cutting-edge knowledge for sustainable development is a key objective of the UN System Staff College. With support from the Federal Government of Germany, UNSSC, on 1 January 2016, opened the “Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development” in Bonn to equip the UN and its partners with a vehicle to deliver on the learning agenda pertaining to Agenda 2030.

The UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development supports the policy and operational work of the UN through the development of learning tools, platforms for interaction and a mature set of learning offerings. It also serves as a catalyst and convener prompting dialogue and knowledge sharing on issues relevant to the vision and mission of the United Nations between UN staff and a diverse set of stakeholders from academia, the private sector and civil society.

While primarily focusing on the capacities, skills and competencies of UN staff in the field of sustainable development, several learning events and courses will also be open to a non-UN audience. This with a view to enhancing essential partnerships for sustainable development, and to support genuine national ownership of the development agenda.

For more information, please visit http://www.unssc.org/featured-themes/unssc-knowledge-centre-sustainable-development. To download our course overview for 2017, please go to http://www.unssc.org/sites/unssc.org/files/kcsd_course_overview.pdf.