United Nations Environment Programme’s 2018 Observer Activities Report to the Arctic Council

I. The Organization’s contributions to the work of the Arctic Council’s Working Groups, Task Forces, and/or Expert Groups The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) has been active as an Observer to the Arctic Council since 1996, taking part in the Council’s Ministerial, Senior Arctic Officials meetings and, together with its collaborating centre GRID-Arendal in Norway and the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in the UK, has engaged actively in the efforts of most of the Council’s scientific and technical working groups. As the United Nation’s organization setting the global environmental agenda and along with the Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) it administers—including those on biological diversity, hazardous waste, chemicals and mercury—UN Environment has facilitated global outreach for some of the Council’s work. Notably, UN Environment continues to provide technical support on a number of assessment and monitoring activities as described below.