To him, the impressive surroundings are more than just optics: “Haus Carstanjen lends some weight to our new initiative. It is the only castle in the entire UN operation.” The setting gives UN employees from Togo, Thailand, Vietnam and 115 other countries perhaps the final push to make the journey to the Rhine for their continued education.

Van Weerelt, who is from the Netherlands, has welcomed 900 participants since the UNSSC opened a year ago in Bonn. The centre not only deepens UN employees’ knowledge of sustainable development but also designs tailor-made courses for companies with sustainability goals, such as UPS or Toyota, for government agencies or philanthropic institutions.

“Everyone needs to learn how to achieve goals as partners and how to avoid pitfalls,” explains van Weerelt. “It is not about how to attract a lot of money from the business sector, but how to achieve a common goal.” Examples of sustainable solutions that help everyone are tents for migrants, such as those now being produced by the furniture giant Ikea, or the automation processes being developed by the software specialist SAP for health projects.

“Without private sector initiatives, we would never be able to achieve our goals for sustainable development,” acknowledges the UN representative. Van Weerelt has to finance a substantial part of the UN knowledge centre through course fees. “For us, quickly adapting to requirements is a question of survival,” says the Head of Centre. He is lucky that the private sector has better understood the urgency of the climate change problem than many state institutions. The UNSSC therefore has lots of bookings and the man from Rotterdam wants to almost double his team of eight employees to fifteen by June.

Patrick van Weerelt came to Bonn with his family in October 2015 after positions in UN duty stations in Italy, Senegal, New York, Geneva and South Africa. “I’m really happy,” he says. “Ministries are open-minded to our requests and my son can go to Bonn International School by bike. We are planning to stay here for a long time.” The city is also intellectually stimulating. “Nearly every day we find at one of the many local internationally active organisations a new genius, who helps us with further education,” says the Netherlander. The restructuring of the Ruhr area provides a “living study” on the doorstep for guests from all over the world.

The 47-year-old also applies the work motto “Building Bridges” to himself. In 2016 he immediately supported the founding of an international Carnival association. The “UN-Funken”, of which he is president, will have a float for the first time in this season’s Rose Monday parade.

The human rights lawyer first discovered the joys of continued education and life-long learning in Washington, where he gave lectures at the university. “Learning within the UN system often only happens voluntarily,” says van Weerelt. “Only someone who wants to know something learns.” He emphasises that a strong UN has to approach the topic of continued education differently. And there are enough examples in Haus Carstanjen.