History of the Korean War

United Nations Command (UNC) was established on July 7, 1950 following the United Nations'
recognition of North Korean aggression against South Korea. UNC signifies the world’s first
attempt at collective security under the United Nations system. United Nations Security Council
Resolutions 83 and 84 provided the international legal authority for member states to restore
peace on the Korean Peninsula, and they designated the United States as the leader of the
unified command we know as UN Command. During the Korean War and the reconstruction
period following the signing of the Armistice Agreement, twenty-two countries contributed either
combat forces or medical assistance to support South Korea under the United Nations flag.

Timeline:
 June 25, 1950: North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded South Korea.
The UN condemned the attack and passed United Nations Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) 82, calling for the cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of North Korean forces.

 June 27, 1950: United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 83 declared North
Korean actions constituted a breach of peace, recommending UN members provide
assistance to South Korea to repel the attack and restore peace on the Korean Peninsula.

 June 28, 1950: Seoul, South Korea’s capital city, was captured by North Korean forces.

 July 7, 1950: United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 84 authorized the
United States to establish and lead a unified command comprised of military forces from UN
member states, and authorized that command to operate under the UN flag.

 July 31, 1950: United Nations Security Resolution (UNSCR) 85 called for UNC to
determine the requirements for the relief to, and support for, the people of South Korea.

 August 4—September 16, 1950: U.S. and South Korean troops established the
"Busan Perimeter", and prevented North Korea from capturing South Korea.

 September 15—16, 1950: U.S. forces conducted the Incheon Landing.

 September 16—22, 1950: UNC forces broke out of the Busan Perimeter, recaptured
Seoul, and advanced north into North Korea.

 November 25, 1950: The Chinese People’s Volunteer Army crossed the Yalu river into
North Korea and drove back UNC forces.

 November 27—28, 1950: UNC forces are surrounded at the Changjin (Chosin)
Reservoir.

 November 1950: United Nations Command incorporated the Civil Assistance sections of
major combat units with the small UN Public Health and Welfare Detachment to form the UN
Civil Assistance Command (UNCACK) in Busan. UNCACK supervised the distribution and
utilization of more than $450 million in relief assistance from 33 UN member nations.
UNCACK clothed, fed, housed, and medically treated millions before operations ceased in
September 1953.

 December 9—24, 1950: Evacuation of UNC forces from the port city of Hungnam. This
operation also included the largest sea-borne military evacuation of civilians under combat
conditions, transporting 98,000 Koreans from Hungnam, Wonsan, and Sonjin ports.
 January—April 1951: Chinese People’s Volunteer Army pushed UNC forces back across
the 38th Parallel and recaptured Seoul.

 May 1951: UNC counterattack freed Seoul. Fighting stalled around the 38th Parallel.

 June 1951—July 1953: UNC and communist forces fought sporadic battles for control of
territory around the 38th Parallel.

 July 10, 1951: Peace talks began at Kaesong and eventually continued at Panmunjom.

 July 27, 1953: The Armistice Agreement was signed at Panmunjom, temporarily ending all
fighting. A permanent peace treaty has never been signed.

The UN's support to Viet Nam began with focus on war reconstruction and humanitarian
assistance. Recognizing the rapid changes in the economic and development context of
Viet Nam, the UN has been expanded towards strengthening institutions, policies, social
protection, health, education, agriculture, and more.
The former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after German occupation in World War
II and a bitter civil war. A federation of six republics, it brought together Serbs, Croats,
Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist
regime. Tensions between these groups were successfully suppressed under the leadership
of President Tito. After Tito's death in 1980, tensions re-emerged. Calls for more autonomy
within Yugoslavia by nationalist groups led in 1991 to declarations of independence in
Croatia and Slovenia. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army lashed out, first in Slovenia and
then in Croatia. Thousands were killed in the latter conflict which was paused in 1992 under
a UN-monitored ceasefire. Bosnia, with a complex mix of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, was
next to try for independence. Bosnia's Serbs, backed by Serbs elsewhere in Yugoslavia,
resisted. Under leader Radovan Karadzic, they threatened bloodshed if Bosnia's Muslims
and Croats - who outnumbered Serbs - broke away. Despite European blessing for the move
in a 1992 referendum, war came fast. Yugoslav army units, withdrawn from Croatia and
renamed the Bosnian Serb Army, carved out a huge swathe of Serb-dominated territory.
Over a million Bosnian Muslims and Croats were driven from their homes in ethnic
cleansing. Serbs suffered too. The capital Sarajevo was besieged and shelled. UN
peacekeepers, brought in to quell the fighting, were seen as ineffective. International peace
efforts to stop the war failed, the UN was humiliated and over 100,000 died. The war ended
in 1995 after Nato bombed the Bosnian Serbs and Muslim and Croat armies made gains on
the ground. A US-brokered peace divided Bosnia into two self-governing entities, a Bosnian
Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation lightly bound by a central government.

In August 1995, the Croatian army stormed areas in Croatia under Serb control
prompting thousands to flee. Soon Croatia and Bosnia were fully independent.
Slovenia and Macedonia had already gone. Montenegro left later. In 1999, Kosovo's
ethnic Albanians fought Serbs in another brutal war to gain independence. Serbia
ended the conflict beaten, battered and alone. Initially the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA)
sought to preserve the unity of the whole of Yugoslavia by crushing the secessionist
governments; however the JNA increasingly came under the influence of the Serbian
government of Slobodan Milošević that evoked Serbian nationalist rhetoric and was willing to
support the Yugoslav state insofar as using it to preserve the unity of Serbs in one state; as a
result the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Croats, Kosovar Albanians, Bosniaks, and ethnic
Macedonians, and effectively became a Serb army.[8] According to the 1994 United Nations
report, the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia, but to create a “Greater Serbia” from
parts of Croatia and Bosnia.[9]
Often described as Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II, the conflicts have become
infamous for the war crimes involved, including mass murder and genocide. These were the first
conflicts since World War II to be formally judged genocidal in character and many key individual
participants were subsequently charged with war crimes.[10] The International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN to prosecute these crimes.[11]
According to the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Yugoslav Wars resulted in the
deaths of 140,000 people.[12] The Humanitarian Law Center writes that in the conflicts in former
Yugoslav republics at least 130,000 people lost their lives.[13]
The wars are generally considered to be a series of largely separate but related military conflicts
occurring during the breakup of Yugoslavia and affecting most of the former Yugoslav republics:
The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR; also known by its French
acronym FORPRONU: Force de Protection des Nations Unies) was the first United Nations
peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav Wars. The
force was formed in February 1992 and its mandate ended in March 1995, with the
peacekeeping mission restructuring into three other forces (the United Nations Preventive
Deployment Force (UNPREDEP) in Macedonia, and the United Nations Confidence Restoration
Operation in Croatia (UNCRO) in Croatia, with restructured UNPROFOR operations ongoing in
Bosnia and Herzegovina until their replacement by NATO and EU missions in December 1995).

[Link]
%20Protection%20Force,Herzegovina%20during%20the%20Yugoslav%20Wars.

The UN was not involved because the Soviet Union had veto power in the UN Security
Council so the UN could not take an action favorable to the US and South Vietnam.
Conversely, the US had veto power in the Security Council so the UN could not take action
favorable to North Vietnam. VIETNAM WAR. The UN's support to Viet Nam began
with focus on war reconstruction and humanitarian assistance. Recognizing the rapid
changes in the economic and development context of Viet Nam, the UN has been expanded
towards strengthening institutions, policies, social protection, health, education, agriculture,
and more.

GENDER-

Feminist perspectives entered the International Relations discipline at the end of the 1980s, at about
the same time as the end of the cold war. Feminism as an academic discipline grew out of the
feminist movement of the 1 960s and l 970s-a movement dedicated to achieving political, social, and
economic equality for women. The United Nations (UN) held its first official conference on women in
Mexico City in 1 975. This conference launched the UN Decade for Women ( 1976-85).It was the first
in a series of official intergovernmental women's conferences sponsored by the UN.

United Nations has played a significant role in the promotion and protection of women’s human
rights. Since its creation in 1945, equality of women with men has been on the agenda of the United
Nations. The Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations sets as a basic goal "to reaffirm faith in
fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women". Article 1 of the Charter proclaims as one of the purposes of the United Nations the
achievement of international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms for all people "without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion".
Building on these initial commitments, specialized norms and standards and policies and
mechanisms specifically support the promotion of women’s equality and the elimination of
discrimination against women.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women constitutes the
pinnacle of the United Nations’ standard-setting work on gender equality. Prepared by the
Commission on the Status of Women, the central inter-governmental body in the United Nations
responsible for the promotion of gender equality, and adopted by the General Assembly on 18
December 1979, the Convention now has 185 States parties, which are obligated to translate its
provisions into practice. Adherence to the Convention requires the practical realization of the
principle of equality of women and men and fosters a climate – both internationally and nationally -
where violations of the rights of women will not be tolerated. The Convention provides for women’s
equal enjoyment with men of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, and requires States
parties to eliminate discrimination against women not only in the public sphere, but also in the
private sphere including within the family. The Convention has been used as the legal basis and a
powerful instrument for furthering the rights of women nationally. Existing legislation in many
countries has been brought into conformity with the principles and obligations set out in the 3
Convention, and new laws have been adopted as a result of ratification. Implementation of the
Convention is monitored by a Committee of 23 experts, the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women, which reviews reports that all States parties are obliged to present
on a regular basis.

Human rights instruments and treaty bodies, and other mechanisms for the protection and
promotion of human rights. , other human rights instruments and mechanisms also support the
elimination of discrimination and the realization of the principle of equality of women and men. For
example, the Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights
obligate States parties to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of the rights
enshrined in the respective instrument, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
provides for the equality before the law and equal protection of the law without discrimination,
including on grounds of sex. The Convention on the Rights of 4 the Child is particularly pertinent to
the situation of girls. The monitoring bodies under those treaties regularly address the rights of
women within the mandates provided by those treaties, including discrimination against women in
the areas of employment, education, health, housing, trafficking, or political life. They have also
examined gender related forms of racial discrimination.

Global conferences and summits in the 1990s

Several of the world conferences held by the United Nations in the 1990s were instrumental in
enhancing visibility and prominence for women’s human rights on the international agenda. the
1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna highlighted the promotion of all human rights
instruments relating to women, and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing called
for action to address the systematic and systemic nature of discrimination against women in order to
achieve the full realization of human rights for all. The Beijing Platform for Action identified human
rights as one of the 12 critical areas of concern, and set strategic objectives and detailed action for
achieving them. Both conferences confirmed that the human rights of women and the girl-child are
an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights and emphasized that the full
and equal enjoyment of all human rights by women and girls is a priority for Governments and the
United Nations.
Violence against women is now recognized as a pervasive violation of women’s human rights and a
major impediment to achieving gender equality. Drawing on the recommendations of this study, the
General Assembly, in December 2006, adopted a comprehensive resolution to intensify efforts to
eliminate all 6 forms of violence against women.

One of the most corrosive forms of violence against women and violation of women’s rights is
trafficking in women and girls. It results in the gradual and total destruction of a woman’s personal
identity and her right to live as a free human being. The United Nations has elaborated treaties on
trafficking, beginning in 1949. The most recent international instrument adopted by the General
Assembly is the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women
and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,
which entered into force in 2003, and has been ratified by 111 States.

Violations of women’s human rights in armed conflict The devastating effects of armed conflict and
its aftermath on women, especially sexual violence, is another area which has received increasing
attention, particularly in fora that traditionally paid little attention to gender equality and women’s
concerns, such as the Security Council. The Security Council’s path breaking resolution 1325,
adopted in 2000, stresses the importance of women's equal participation and full involvement in all
efforts to maintain and promote peace and security. The resolution underscores the responsibility to
protect women and girls from human rights abuses, including gender-based violence; and
emphasizes the need to consider gender perspectives in all aspects of conflict prevention, resolution,
and reconstruction.

Violation of the human rights of women refugees, asylum seekers and IPDs The situation of women
refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced also deserves special mention. Refugee and
displaced women and women asylum seekers are often denied basic human rights, such as the right
to shelter, food, water, health and education. The rights of refugees and asylum seekers are
protected under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The
1951 Convention provides a definition of ‘refugees’ and embodies the principle of nonrefoulement,
i.e. States parties must refrain from refoulement of refugees to countries in which they would face
prosecution.

The Human Rights Council, established in 2006, also has a vital role in the effective promotion and
protection of the human rights of women. It was encouraging that, in his statement to the
Commission on the Status of Women a few weeks ago, the President of the Council emphasized the
importance of women’s human rights and their 9 cross cutting nature. Women’s human rights must
be fully integrated into the work of the Council.

n July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. UN Women is an amalgamation of four
previously distinct parts of the UN system which focused exclusively on gender equality and
women’s empowerment. They were:

Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW)

International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW)

Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI)

United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)).

The main role of UN Women is:

to support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their
formulation of policies, global standards and norms ,

to help countries to implement these standards, to provide suitable technical and financial support
to those countries that request it and to forge effective partnerships with civil society,

to hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular
monitoring of system-wide progress.

Millennium Declaration, the World Summit 2005 and the challenge of implementation. The
momentum generated over the last decade clearly carried over into the Millennium Summit of the
United Nations in 2000 where global leaders at the highest level committed to promote gender
equality and the empowerment of women, combat all forms of violence against women, and
implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Similarly, at the World Summit of 2005, global leaders acknowledged that “progress for women is
progress for all” and recognized the need to pay special attention to the human rights of women and
to bring gender perspectives into the human rights agenda.

[Link]

[Link]
development-goals-achieved-mdgs

millennial development goals.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): • Also known as UN Refugee Agency,
headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, a UN Program mandated to protect and support refugees at
the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local
integration or resettlement to a third country. • Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and
well being of refugees who are internally displaced persons (IDPs) and would fit the legal definition
of a refugee under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967
Protocol, the 1969 Organization for African Unity Convention or some other similar treaty. •
Presently, UNHCR has major missions in Lebanon, South Sudan, Chad/Darfur, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan as well as Kenya to assist and provide services to IDPs and refugees in
camps and in urban settings. • The UNHCR hosts expert roundtables to discuss issues of concern to
the international refugee community. • The UNHCR was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and
[Link] UNHCR has been chosen for the prestigious Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament
and Development 2015. • UNHCR relies almost entirely on voluntary contributions from
governments, UN and pooled funding mechanisms, intergovernmental institutions and the private
sector. • These funds are being used in providing protection, shelter, water, health, education and
other essentials to millions of refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless and internally displaced people
around the world.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated
to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in
their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country.

The 1990s ushered in a new era in which humanitarian issues played a historically unprecedented
role in international politics. Refugee movements in northern Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, and
Haiti were the subject of increasing discussion in political and military fora such as the UN Security
Council and NATO. Forced displacements were also at the centre of crises in the African Great Lakes
region, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Albania, Kosovo, and East Timor.

The end of the Cold War made possible the resolution of a number of major refugee situations. After
having assisted large groups of refugees in countries of asylum for years, sometimes for decades, we
were able to resolve some long standing refugee crises: millions of people returned voluntarily, with
UNHCR assistance, to Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Togo, Mali, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Iraq,
Tajikistan and Cambodia, and of course in Central America, just to mention the largest repatriation
operations in which UNHCR was involved during this period.

In all these countries, conflicts had been brought to an end, making it possible for refugees to return.
In other countries, where peace-making efforts are on-going, refugees have been repatriated only to
certain areas which they, and UNHCR, consider to be relatively safe: for example in Afghanistan,
Somalia, Burundi and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Largely as a result of repatriation movements, the overall number of persons of concern to my Office
has decreased for the first time in years, from a peak of 27 million in 1995 to the current figure of
about 22 million. In 1998 the total budget of UNHCR, barring a major emergency, will be lower than
the 1 billion dollar mark which it has exceeded every year since 1991.

The end of the Cold War opened up several opportunities to resolve refugee crises. But the Cold War
had also created a status quo in which potential conflictual situations in many countries had been
"frozen" for years. The end of bipolarism led to a series of harsh, violent internal conflicts, often
linked to an complex international web of political and economic interests. These conflicts almost
invariably forced people to flee their homes. Sometimes, population displacement became one of
the aims of the conflict: in former Yugoslavia, for example, extremists from majority ethnic groups
forced minorities from areas in which they had coexisted for centuries, in what has become known
as "ethnic cleansing". In some cases the victims themselves were involved in conflicts. In the midst of
ethnic confrontations, humanitarian agencies trying to protect and assist victims were perceived as
taking sides and their neutrality and impartiality were often questioned.

It should also be mentioned that the size and speed of these population movements have few
precedents in history. In 1991, over one million Kurds fled Northern Iraq. As a result of military
intervention, most of them returned in a matter of weeks. In former Yugoslavia, over 1.5 million
citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are still refugees abroad, or displaced in their own country, but
400,000 have already returned. Between April and July 1994, in three successive waves, almost two
million Rwandan refugees fled to Tanzania, Burundi and the former Zaire; almost one million poured
into the Goma region of Zaire in a period of four days. The mass repatriation of Rwandans from
Goma which started in November 1996 in the course of military conflict resulted in 600,000 people
returning suddenly over a period of a few days.

Under these volatile circumstances, it has often been extremely difficult for my Office to fulfil its
mandate for refugee protection in the countries of asylum. In some cases, for example, UNHCR has
been obliged to assist refugees among whom were groups of persons not entitled to international
protection. This situation prevailed in the camps set up to host Rwandan refugees in 1994, especially
in Tanzania and in the former Zaire. We were not given the means to separate political extremists,
militiamen, armed elements and criminals from bona fide refugees. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda,
the huge mass influxes of Rwandan refugees into neighbouring countries later that same year, and
finally the recent tragedy of the Rwandan refugees scattered in the Congolese rainforest and dying
of starvation and violence, represent a series of blatant examples of how the efforts to uphold
humanitarian principles are becoming harder to sustain. What we have recently defined as a "crisis
in protection" may worsen, unless countries of asylum and of origin, as well as the major regional
and global powers, have the will to resolve political problems causing displacement, or - in extreme
cases - dispatch military forces to restore law and order indispensable to the provision of protection
and assistance.

hallenges pertaining to UN

Since its inception 75 years ago, the UN has remained the world’s most important multilateral
forum.

Today, the world faces global threats, both coventional (violent conflict, nuclear proliferation, and
infectious disease) and non-conevtional (climate change, terrorism, and cyberwar, among others).

However, the UN system is enmeshed in serious budgetary difficulties and subject to endless
reforms. These lacunae can be reflected in the following:

United Nations General Assembly: Prominent Stage, Limited Powers

Every year, the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) becomes the stage
where presidents and prime ministers give speeches.

The event offers plenty of star power, but critics contend that it is little more than a glorified gabfest.

Also, UNGA has no control over veto power exercised by UNSC and it cannot take any decisive action
against permanent members of UNSC.

United Nations Security Council: Powerful but Often Paralyzed

The 15-member Security Council is by far the most powerful arm of the United Nations. It can
impose sanctions, as it did against Iran over its nuclear program, and authorize military intervention,
as it did against Libya in 2011.

However, the veto power is used by permanent five countries to serve the strategic interest of
themselves and their allies.

Since 1990, the United States has cast a veto on Council resolutions 16 times, concerning Israeli-
Palestinian relations. Russia has done so 17 times, including eight times over Syria.

Also, the current composition of UNSC does not represent contemporary realities, as permanent
members of UNSC, as it has not been reformed since its inception.
United Nations Secretary General: Global Reach, Vague Role

The UN charter is vague in defining the duties of the secretary general, the United Nations’ top
official.

He or she is expected to show no favoritism to any particular country, but as the office is largely
dependent on the funding and the good will of the most powerful nations, it hampers the working of
the said office.

World Health Organisation: Arm Twisting By Rich Countries

WHO was mandated to control the spread of contagious diseases, backstop public health
programmes, formulate standards on nutrition and hygiene and establish a centre for comparative
health data.

However, recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been criticised by the US on account
of mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently suspended its financial contribution to
WHO.

Also, WHO has been under pressure from the US government to adopt an approach that favours
interests of US pharma companies, rather than a global advocate of public health policy.

World Trade Organisation: Stalled Negotiations

The World Trade Organization is mandated to expand the free trade agenda and a standard bearer
for open and efficient global markets.

However, the advanced countries are determined to promote the kind of corporate-friendly rules
that align with their own economic interests and are indifferent to the Doha Development Agenda.

Conclusion

The greatest challenge that the world faces today is in prediction of the imminent disasters that can
be catastrophic. The Covid-19 pandemic is one such; others may include severe climate shocks.

With growing environmental and health stress, such disastrous events are likely to occur more often.
This can only be tackled through collective actions. Thus, there is a need for a new world order based
on the ethos of multilateralism and shared responsibility. In this context, democratising the UN
system can be a step in this direction.

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP): • Headquartered in Gigiri, neighbourhood of Nairobi,

Kenya, established in 1972 as a result of the UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm
Conference). • UNEP coordinates in environmental activities, assisting developing countries in
implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. • Its activities cover a wide range of
issues regarding the atmosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, environmental governance and
green economy. • Governments are the core of UNEP’s funding because UNEP is an
intergovernmental organization owned by the 193 UN Member States. Each and every country is a
donor, and each and every country is a recipient.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to
environmental issues within the United Nations system.[1][2] It was established by Maurice Strong,
its first director, after the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in
June 1972. Its mandate is to provide leadership, deliver science and develop solutions on a wide
range of issues, including climate change,[3] the management of marine and terrestrial ecosystems,
and green economic development.[4] The organization also develops international environmental
agreements; publishes and promotes environmental science and helps national governments
achieve environmental targets.

As a member of the United Nations Development Group, UNEP aims to help the world meet the 17
Sustainable Development Goals.

SIX AREAS OF CONCENTRATION

UNEP re-organised its work programme into six strategic areas as part of its move to results based
management. The selection of six areas of concentration was guided by scientific evidence, the
UNEP mandate and priorities emerging from global and regional forums.

1. CLIMATE CHANGE UNEP strengthens the ability of countries to integrate climate change responses
by providing leadership in adaptation, mitigation, technology and finance. UNEP is focusing on
facilitating the transition to low-carbon societies, improving the understanding of climate science,
facilitating the development of renewable energy and raising public awareness.

2. POST-CONFLICT AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT UNEP conducts environmental assessments in

crisis-affected countries and provides guidance for implementing legislative and institutional
frameworks for improved environmental management. Activities undertaken by UNEP’s Post-
Conflict & Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB) include post-conflict environmental assessment in
Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Lebanon, Nigeria and Sudan.

3. ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT Facilitates management and restoration of ecosystems in a manner

consistent with sustainable development, and promotes use of ecosystem services. Examples
include the Global Programme of Action (GPA) for the Protection of the Marine Environment from
Land-Based Activities.

4. ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE UNEP supports governments in establishing, implementing and

strengthening the necessary processes, institutions, laws, policies and programs to achieve
sustainable development at the country, regional and global levels, and mainstreaming environment
in development planning.

5. HARMFUL SUBSTANCES UNEP strives to minimise the impact of harmful substances and hazardous
waste on the environment and human beings. UNEP has launched negotiations for a global
agreement on mercury, and implements projects on mercury and the Strategic Approach to
International Chemicals Management (SAICM) to reduce risks to human health and the
environment.

6. RESOURCE EFFICIENCY/SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION UNEP focuses on

regional and global efforts to ensure natural resources are produced, processed and consumed in a
more environmentally friendly way. For example, the Marrakesh Process is a global strategy to
support the elaboration of a 10-Year Framework of Programs on sustainable consumption and
production.