9 April 2020, Bangkok, Thailand: During this ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and response situation, we wish to extend our best wishes to you, your colleagues and family in the hopes you are all safe at this difficult time.

UNEP has, along with the UN family across the world, taken on new ways of working whilst ensuring the continuity of its engagement, support and commitment to its member states and partners.

UNEP at its headquarters in Nairobi and duty stations worldwide including Bangkok are operating full time on telecommuting. Work continues online using available technologies.

In terms of our project partnership with you, many of planned events, meetings have been postponed, cancelled or converted where possible to e-platforms. Events are being revised in full consultation with relevant partners including government agencies. 

We successfully organized two online conferences, one for the audience in Penang, Malaysia on plastic disclosure for city councils and municipalities and one for the hospitality industry, named “E-Roundtable: Reducing plastic waste in the hospitality industry”. Both were well attended and you can find more information about any SEA circular events here.

As you will appreciate, this is a changing situation as the COVID-19 situation itself evolves. UNEP’s commitment to support  environment, development, social and economic sustainability remains the basis of our work.  We will continue implementation of SEA circular to the best of our abilities, we look forward to continued strong collaboration with partners and remain committed to support you in this. 

Please do not hesitate to contact Maggie Lee at maggie.lee@un.org or sea-circular@un.org for information and ongoing discussions.

More on UNEP’s response to COVID-19