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By Magdy Martínez-Solimán, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP | Omar Abdi, UN Assistant

Last year the Diversity Task Force of the United Nations in Moldova tasked us, its communication focal points, with conducting an internal diversity survey to verify the degree of diversity among UN staff in the country, and staff attitudes towards diversity. The results were something of an eye-opener. Not only were some groups of the population – LGBT, Roma, people with disabilities –underrepresented among the 300+ staff of all UN agencies in Moldova, but the attitude of staff towards minorities showed that there are still important steps to be taken in this regard.

We all know that the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals is an ambitious global plan, but if we are serious about it, building vibrant and systematic partnerships is a vital prerequisite for their successful implementation.

Results, results, results. The age old monitoring and evaluation question: how do you [actually] draw a connection between transformational changes in the lives of people and the development projects that aim to help them?

Many people see the internet as the best means of communicating, reporting and sharing information while others see it as a link between people, offices, countries and the rest of the world.

Lebanon has weathered many a storm, and is not easily shipwrecked. But five years and counting into the Syria Crisis, the country’s developmental