Anniversaries offer opportunities to reflect on the past and imagine the future. In 2022, the United Nations Environment Programme turns fifty and has a chance to reimagine itself. Created to catalyze environmental work within the United Nations and beyond, how has UNEP done? What are the new challenges and what should it do differently? Who can cause that change, and how can they do so? To explore the questions over the year that commemorates UNEP’s 50th anniversary, the Center for Governance and Sustainability at UMass Boston convenes a series of conversations with leaders around the world who have shaped UNEP’s history. Guests will engage with the new book by Center Director Prof. Maria Ivanova, The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at 50.  Join this dialogue space as we explore untold stories and reimagine environmental multilateralism.  

For this dialogue, Dr. Maria Ivanova will be joined by Elizabeth Mrema and Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretaries of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Both Elizabeth Mrema and Ibrahim Thiaw have served at UNEP – as Director of the Law Division and as Deputy Executive Director respectively. Join this dialogue as we discuss the role of environmental conventions and UNEP in global environmental governance.

Register here...