Terms of Use

 

1. User Agreement

 

Please read these Terms of Use carefully. By continuing to this site, you agree to have read, understood, and accepted the terms and conditions contained below. If you do not agree to any of these terms and conditions, please do not continue to use this site.

 

These Terms of Use are subject to change without notice, so please make sure you check this page for any updates. The date of the most recent revisions will appear at the bottom of this page. If you continue to use this site, this means that you accept any changes to or revisions of these Terms of Use.

 

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you (also known as ‘User’) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’) establishing the rules for the use and interactions with our site, its contents, and other website users.

The Global Development Commons (also known as ‘GDC’) is a UNICEF website and online platform where users can share and gain specialized and previously curated knowledge about UNICEF and its partners work in the area of child-focused programming and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), personal opinions of experts and pre-existing externally researched knowledge about child-focused programming and the SDGs.

 

Your privacy is important to us. Please refer to our Privacy Policy, which includes information on what and how the GDC collects, stores, and uses User information. Please, also be aware that by continuing to use this site you are confirming that you have read and accept our Privacy Policy.

 

2. Account Creation and Security

 

In order to submit content to the site, you need to register with the GDC and create an account. Creating an account is optional but doing so will allow you to actively participate on the site. For example, you will be able to submit content and participate in forums. If you choose to create an account, you will be asked to provide personal information about yourself including your username, email address and/or phone number.

 

To see how, personal information will be used, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

 

For the purpose of this website, we encourage you to select a username that does not disclose your real name or other information that could identify you – especially if you are under the age of 18 years. As a User, you are solely responsible for keeping your password and account safe and secure. You are also responsible for all actions taken from or on your account, including cases where your account is used by someone other than you. If UNICEF determines that the use of your account violates these Terms of Use, your account will be subject to suspension or deletion. Under no circumstance, should you use another person’s GDC account including their username and password without permission.

 

If you have any reason to believe that your account is no longer secure or if your password has been stolen – you are solely responsible to ensure your password is changed immediately. If you cannot access your account to change your password, please notify us at gdc@unicef.org.

 

3. Rules of Usage

 

The GDC is an open community that welcomes people from around the world. The GDC aims to create a diverse environment where users should feel comfortable regardless of their nationality, gender, cultural background, religion, sexual orientation or political conviction.

 

The GDC’s core values are positivity, openness, respect, inclusiveness, dialogue, collaboration and constructiveness.

 

The GDC welcomes contributions on any topic related to UNICEF’s work and recognizes that politics and policy are an important part of the global conversation. We believe that attacks, insults, and political polemics do not foster tolerance or support an inclusive community of ideas.

 

Accordingly, GDC is not intended for partisan politics, nor for extremist or inflammatory positions. You should not make allegations against, advocate for, nor belittle or insult parties, party platforms and political leaders. Additionally, many countries have specific rules for political content, and you are responsible for complying with these rules.

 

Among other prohibited categories, you may not use this site in any way to:

  • Promote bigotry, discrimination, hatred or violence against any persons or groups;
  • Threaten, harasses or intimidate any persons or groups, whether that person(s) is affiliated with the GDC or not;
  • Use foul language or personal attacks;
  • Use sexually explicit or other graphically violent material;
  • Engage in dishonest or deceptive behavior;
  • Imitate, impersonate or pretend to be somebody;
  • Incite or provide instructions on how to commit any illegal or unlawful activity;
  • Ask for or expose any person’s personal identifying information, contact information, or passwords without the person’s consent;
  • Spam other users with promotional offers or other unsolicited content not related to the GDC’s mission. This includes viruses and malware;
  • Use content for commercial purposes including but not limited to, the selling of other users’ information as well as the sale of the content itself;
  • Violate or attempt to violate the security of the site.

 

You agree to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in your country when you use this site. Under no circumstance is UNICEF responsible for your opinions.

 

4. GDC Content, Disclaimer of Warranties

 

The GDC hosts materials related to UNICEF and its partners’ mandates. The materials include but are not limited to, evaluations, research, reports, manuals, workbooks, guides, tools and videos. The materials are meant to increase knowledge and understanding on particular subjects. The contents of the site are for your personal use only and not for commercial use.

 

Except for any user-generated content, UNICEF owns and retains all rights in and to the GDC code, the design, functionality, and architecture of the GDC and any software, support materials or content provided through this site (collectively the “GDC IP”). Except for any rights explicitly granted under these Terms of Use, you are not granted any rights in and to any GDC IP. If you want to use GDC IP in a way that is not allowed by these Terms of Use, you must first contact the GDC team to obtain written permission.

 

Unless explicitly noted, all materials provided by the GDC on this site are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives 3.0 Unported license. This license allows you and others to copy and redistribute the content on the site but it does not allow you or others to remix or transform the content or use the content for commercial purposes. This license requires you to attribute any material you use to the original author(s). If you still have questions, please feel free to visit the Creative Commons FAQ page, where you will find more information.

 

Please note that this site and the GDC support materials may contain images, sounds and videos that are trademarked by third parties. Nothing in these Terms of Use or the Creative Commons license limits or reduces a third party’s intellectual property rights. You may not use these materials to label, promote, or endorse any product or service. You are solely responsible for any violation of a third party’s intellectual property rights caused by your misuse of these materials.

 

The GDC and UNICEF names and logos are the exclusive property of UNICEF. They are protected under international and national laws. Unauthorized use is prohibited. They may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of UNICEF. Requests for permission should be sent to gdc@unicef.org.

 

5. Posting Content

 

Posting is great but we want to make sure you do it respectfully! Please remember that everything you post on this site is public.

 

As an author, we trust you to ensure your content including any summaries or affiliated writing is accurate. You may express your opinion(s) on this site but if they do not comply with the Rules of Usage noted above, the GDC has the right to delete them immediately.

 

If you decide to use someone else’s work in your own, make sure that you have permission to post it on the site and credit it appropriately. If this is not the case and we are approached by the owner of the original content or affiliated third party, we may have to take down your content if required.

 

All contributions, including published content on the platform and well as content sent to gdc@unicef.org are not deemed private. We have the right to publish this or send it to other people. Please also read our GDC quality standards for blog posts.

 

We are here to help you. If you choose to provide your own content to this site, you consent to allowing the GDC to edit that content for clarity purposes. If you submit something with grammatical or spelling errors, we reserve the right to edit your work.

 

You also agree that your content may be used by us to support UNICEF’s work and mission, and that we can share your content on social media, newsletters, in presentations, other websites and communication channels for such purposes. All content you submit on this site is licensed to and through UNICEF under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. This means that you allow us and other users to view, remix, transform, and build upon your content for any purpose. This license also allows us to display, distribute, and reproduce your content on our site, through social media channels, and elsewhere. If you do not want to license your content under this license, then do not share it on this site.

 

You understand that we cannot control all content that is posted on this site. Occasionally, content that does violate our Terms of Use may appear on our site. You agree that when you are exposed to content which does not conform with our Terms of Use or that you otherwise find objectionable or offensive that we are not responsible for such incidents. If you see any content that violates our Terms of Use, please email us immediately at gdc@unicef.org.

 

6. Links to Other Sites

 

When you click on links on this site, some of them may lead you to other places on the Internet, so please keep that in mind and click carefully! External sites are not verified or vetted and therefore we cannot guarantee their accuracy or reliability. Any link provided on this site is provided only as reference. We also do not support these sites, their opinions or anything that they are trying to sell or share. Also note that these other sites are subject to their own terms of use. UNICEF does not assume any responsibility for content on such other sites. We are not responsible for any of the links provided by any user of this site.

 

7. Disclaimer

 

What you read on this site is not necessarily written by UNICEF staff. Therefore, the views and opinions expressed on this site are not a reflection of UNICEF’s views and opinions.

 

All content that we provide or is submitted by other users on this site is provided “as is”. This means we cannot guarantee that all content on this site is completely accurate or error-free.

 

Except as otherwise expressly provided in these Terms of Use, UNICEF does not make any representation or extends any warranty of any kind, either express or implied, to the user with respect to any the services and materials posted on the site. For example, we do not make any commitments about the content within the services, the specific functions of the services, or their reliability, availability, or ability to meet your needs. UNICEF hereby disclaims all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement with respect to any and all of the foregoing.

 

We periodically add, change, improve or update the materials on this site without notice.

 

You agree that you are solely responsible for any issues that you may encounter that result from your use of this site. Under no circumstances can UNICEF be held responsible for any damages or injuries you may have related to your use of this site.

 

You agree to indemnify, at your own expense, UNICEF, its officials, employees, consultants and agents, against any claims, including your costs and expenses, by any third party, resulting from your use of this site.

 

The mention of names of specific companies or products on this site does not imply any intention to infringe proprietary rights, nor should it be interpreted as an endorsement or recommendation on the part of UNICEF.

 

The use of particular designations of countries or territories or maps on this site does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries.

 

8. Contact Us

 

If you have any questions about this site or GDC please contact us at gdc@unicef.org

 

 

Last Updated: 04-June-2020