Welcome to the eighth edition of the UN Environment Programme GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre (CDC) newsletter.

We hope that this Newsletter finds you safe and well. The first six months of 2020 have brought many changes for the staff of our Centre due to the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland in February. The Centre’s office in University College Cork closed in March and we have been working from home since then. Our training, travel and field activities have all been suspended, but luckily our on-line courses could continue with minimal disturbance for our students. This first half of the year has been a steep learning curve on team work on-line as we have been working hard to fulfil as many of our 2020 plans as possible while working remotely. We would like to thank all our colleagues internationally for their commitment and support in our efforts to improve global capacity to monitor and assess freshwater quality.

We hope you enjoy reading about our activities since January. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like more information about any of them or if you have ideas about how we might increase capacity development in your country or region.

Click to read our Newsletter July 2020 here.