WHO and US EPA sign new Memorandum of Understanding on environmental health cooperation

News Hour:

On 28 September 2016 the Director General of WHO and the Administrator of the US Environment Protection Agency signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on cooperation on environmental health.

Under the MOU, WHO and EPA will collaborate in the following fields:

• Air quality;
• Climate change;
• Water and sanitation;
• Toxic chemicals;
• Children’s environmental health; and
• Urban environmental health.

The joint collaboration will enhance capacity to reduce emissions of pollutants, toxics, and greenhouse gases and limit threats to public health caused by pollution. Emphasis is placed on jointly addressing shared current and emerging environmental challenges, such as air, water, chemicals, children’s environmental health, urban environmental health, addressing climate change; and working together to create a foundation for long-term sustainability.

This continues a long history of cooperation between the two organizations, with the first MOU signed in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

Examples of earlier collaboration include support for the development of the following WHO activities, among many others:

• Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality;
• Internationally harmonized methodologies for chemical risk assessment;
• Risk assessments of specific chemicals and pesticides of concern;
• Methodologies and guidelines on how to evaluate vulnerability to climate-change-related effects at local, national and regional levels; and
• International Conferences on Children’s Health and the Environment.