A new Global Environment Facility program is supporting the expansion of work to monitor the distribution of long-lasting chemicals and mercury: toxic substances that present major risks to human and environmental health.
The Global Chemicals Monitoring Programme builds on previous GEF projects aimed at supporting effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention. It responds to new requests from the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) to monitoring newly listed chemicals and an initial request from the Minamata Convention on Mercury to expand on efforts to track and phase-out dangerous pollutants.
It is the first consolidated effort to conduct global monitoring of POPs and mercury in multiple regions at the same time, a key part of work to end chemical pollution worldwide.
Approved in 2024 as part of the GEF’s eighth funding round and implemented by the UN Environment Programme, the program consists of five regional projects covering Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, Latin America, and the Caribbean, coordinated by a global project.
Work done under the program will help sustain and expand the Stockholm Convention’s Global Monitoring Plan, which has over the years yielded important data about the presence of POPs – a class of toxins that are termed “forever chemicals,” which linger in the environment for decades, harming the health of all living things.
From 2016 to 2024, GEF-financed UNEP monitoring projects tracked POPs in 42 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean...
Read the full story on the Global Environment Facility (GEF) website
