The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) is the world’s highest-level decision-making body for matters related to the environment, with a universal membership of all 193 Member States.
Understanding these challenges and preserving and rehabilitating our environment is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It sets the global environmental agenda, provides overarching policy guidance, and defines policy responses to address emerging environmental challenges. It undertakes policy review, dialogue and the exchange of experiences, sets the strategic guidance on the future direction of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and fosters partnerships for achieving environmental goals and resource mobilization.
In 2012, at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, world leaders adopted an outcome document entitled “The Future We Want”. Subparagraph 88 (a) provided for universal membership in the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as other measures to strengthen its governance as well as its responsiveness and accountability to Member States. Subsequently, the 54-member Governing Council was renamed the United Nations Environment Assembly, with all 193 Member States as its members.
The sessions of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) take place every February at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.