Empowering Global Security Training at the United Nations with Totara Learn

Totara award winner for Best Employee Development Project

The United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) plays a vital role in safeguarding UN staff, premises, and programs across more than 130 countries. With a workforce of around 10,000 security personnel, UNDSS must ensure every team member receives the highest level of training—training that can, quite literally, save lives.

The Challenge

UNDSS provides a wide range of specialized training to support its global operations. From onboarding new recruits to delivering highly specialized programs like close protection, trauma response, and physical security, the department’s training needs are complex and evolving.

However, delivering consistent, high-quality training on a global scale posed several challenges:

• Courses needed to be flexible and accessible across regions with varying infrastructure and internet connectivity.

• Training content had to be tailored to diverse roles, responsibilities, and experience levels.

• Manual administration processes were time-consuming and inefficient.

UNDSS needed a solution that could handle this complexity while remaining user-friendly, scalable, and effective in preparing personnel for high-stakes work.

The Solution

Simple solutions for complex training needs.

Through a series of consultancy workshops, UNDSS partnered with Synergy Learning to implement a customized Totara Learn platform tailored to its unique requirements. The result is a dynamic, robust LMS that supports life-saving learning in even the most challenging environments.

Totara Learn’s deep customisation options have enabled UNDSS to design and deliver increasingly sophisticated courses and adaptive learning content. Training programs that were previously too complex to manage online are now seamlessly integrated into the platform, allowing for faster and more effective assessments of security personnel.

The platform leverages Totara’s programs and certifications functionality to build tailored learning pathways for a wide range of specialisms. Using dynamic audiences, UNDSS can easily segment learners based on role, performance, and experience—automatically enrolling top performers into advanced courses or further training based on real-time progress data.

To tie everything together, the UNDSS learning platform is powered by Spark, Synergy Learning’s intuitive and visually branded LMS theme. Spark provides a seamless user experience that ensures learners stay focused and engaged, no matter where in the world they’re located.

The Results

Raising the bar—and female representation—in close protection.

UNDSS reports that the Totara LMS has raised the overall standard of its close protection training candidates. The ability to assess learners more accurately and efficiently during theory-based training means that only the most capable individuals progress to practical, resource-intensive components like live firearm training and high-speed driving exercises—delivering significant cost savings.

Crucially, the platform has also helped remove unconscious bias from the candidate selection process. With greater access to online pre-training and a clear pathway to success, more women are entering—and excelling in—close protection roles. The LMS has played a key role in this shift by building confidence and offering an equitable starting point for all candidates.