April 2016, Geneva, Switzerland - The year 2015 was marked by the adoption of four landmark United Nations agreements: Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Addis Ababa Action Agenda, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement. The 2030 Agenda provides an overarching vision for all of them as well as a global framework for national strategies and policies to put the world on a path to sustainability. UNITAR has developed a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to help interested persons improve their knowledge about the new Agenda and related Global Goals.
The “Introduction to the 2030 Agenda: A New Agenda for a Sustainable World” course was developed to address potential knowledge gaps related to the understanding of changes required from both, policy-makers and ordinary citizens, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It attempts to answer a series of different questions: Are the SDGs significantly different from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? What does a new focus on “leaving no one behind” mean for our policies? What kind of inequalities exist and why is it important to address them? What is policy integration? And how does sustainable consumption and production fit with economic growth and poverty eradication? These are just some of them.
This course is designed drawing primarily on the key UN Member States’ Outcome Documents such as “Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development“ and “Addis Ababa Action Agenda”. It has also benefited from the substantive expertise of the UN sister agencies. In particular, UNITAR has extensively drawn on the issue briefs developed by the UN Technical Support Team during the negotiations of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, the Institute has also drawn on the preceding learning products it developed on the 2030 Agenda with contributions from the UN family.
We invite you to benefit from this new course free of charge!