In 2018, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) joined forces with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to tackle what environmental experts call one of the world’s most dangerous addictions: single-use plastics.

Nairobi, 23 February 2021 –Ministers of environment and other leaders from more than 150 nations today concluded a two-day online meeting of the Fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) in which the Assembly warned that the world risks new pandemics if we don’t change how we safeguard nature.

In addition to the tragic loss of life, COVID-19 has rolled back decades of progress on poverty, gender and health. It has exposed social and economic inequalities and the inextricable link between human and planetary health.

• What does it take to be a United Nations worker in some of the world’s most difficult and dangerous locations?
• How are health workers, humanitarians and peacekeepers racing to protect the most vulnerable populations from the threat of the COVID-19 virus?
• Stationed in remote locations and far from family, how are they coping themselves?

These are some of the questions that the

Nairobi/Colombo, 17 December 2020 - From source to sea, our waters are contaminated by a plastics scourge. A new study by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) offers a number of technological solutions aimed at tackling one of the world’s most pressing issues.

COVID-19 is threatening to plunge millions of people into poverty and worsen global hunger, undermining the long-running push for sustainable development, warns a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Each year, the world marks World Soil Day on 5 December to raise awareness about the growing challenges in soil management and soil biodiversity loss, and encourage governments, communities and individuals around the world to commit to improving soil health.

At the start of the 20th century, German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed a method for taking nitrogen from the air and melding it with hydrogen. It would prove to be one of the great scientific advances of the century.

Combined, the two elements made liquid ammonia, a key ingredient in synthetic fertilizers, which would drive an unprecedented agricultural expansion and help feed a fast-growing world.

• Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UN Environment Programme publish second progress report on the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment
• Report shows that while progress has been made between 2018 and 2019, much more must be done, and at greater speed, to achieve the 2025 targets and tackle plastic pollution
• Substantial differences in progress between signatories – some have taken big steps forward, however others have shown

John Mwangi’s 22-year-old car is his lifeline. His run-down Toyota saloon not only ferries him around the streets of the traffic-congested Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but is also his main source of revenue.