The UN Environment Management Group (“EMG”), will facilitate an exchange of multisectoral and multilevel stakeholder perspectives, in order to explore the implications of the pandemic on the environment and its governance across the UN intergovernmental system, identify any capacity gaps, and more importantly – strengthen collaboration across similar workstreams.

The 3-part series of virtual Nexus Dialogues on COVID-19 and the Environment is in alignment with UNEP’s COVID-19 4-pillared response and UN Secretary General’s response which puts an emphasis on waste management, valuing and investing in nature, rebuild the next generation of social, ecological and productive infrastructures, and modernizing environmental governance and multilateralism with a move towards virtual e-platforms, which simultaneously lowering the overall environmental footprint.

The virtual Nexus Dialogues aim to contribute to the incremental modernization of global environmental governance – which is characterized within the 2030 Agenda’s SDG Framework as the nexus between SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and the environmental SDGs including 6, 7, 13, 14, and 15.

Background Information:

1. Letter from the UN Secretary-General.
2. UN Secretary-General’s Report on Socio-economic impact of COVID
3. UN Framework report on COVID 19
4. UNEP COVID 19 Response

The three Dialogues focused on the following nexus areas:

1. Pollution & Waste (14 July 2020)
2. Building Back Better – a Sustainable Future (15 July 2020)
3. System Resiliency & Health-Related Interdependencies (16 July 2020)

Outcome Document