Legal Environment Assessment for Health and Pollution

Legal Environment Assessment for Health and Pollution
February 3, 2025
Pollution of air, water and soil poses serious threats to health and human rights and undermines efforts towards sustainable development. Air pollution is the second largest risk factor for death, accounting for 8.1 million deaths globally in 2021. Most strikingly, the vast majority of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, highlighting the dramatic inequalities in environmental health across the globe. Reviewing and improving pollution legislation and law enforcement is an effective first step that any country can start with when addressing pollution and its health impacts.
This manual, funded by the European Union, provides step by step guidance on how to undertake a national legal environment assessment (LEA) for health and pollution, including on how to identify relevant legal frameworks, what to review and who to include in the process. It can assist governments, civil society and other key stakeholders to develop evidence-informed policy and strategy, to review and reform laws and policies based on human rights considerations and support increased capacity to achieve enabling legal environments for effective pollution responses. Developing a country’s legislative environment to help reduce and prevent pollution, while making linkages with pollution’s public health impacts, can facilitate all aspects of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other multilateral frameworks such as the Paris Agreement.
Other UNDP products designed to support countries in their efforts in addressing the health burden from pollution include the Methodology for Developing Household and Ambient Air Pollution Investment Cases and Pollution and Health: Guidance Note for Parliamentarian Action.