40 years after Chornobyl: What Have We Learned?

29/04/2026

For a long time, and apart from a few initiatives such as the joint initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on the environment , the humanitarian sector has tended to keep issues related to technological, industrial, and environmental disasters off its radar. The focus of traditional humanitarian actors on conflicts and so-called natural disasters, and the assumption that such disasters can only be managed by highly specialized, well-equipped, and trained institutions, has reinforced this trend. Yet the humanitarian impacts of such disasters can be considerable [...]