Data from Asia and Pacific contains information on POPs concentrations in ambient air, human tissue - breast milk and surface water; for water-soluble fluorinated POPs only (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride). The data was mainly collected over the period between 2008 and 2014. However, some earlier data related to the historical importance were presented and briefly described. Asia-Pacific Region is located in tropical, sub-tropical temperate and sub-arctic climate area, with many countries under the strong influence of the monsoon climate. The region is characterized by huge agricultural and industrial activities to support large number of people, about 59% of the world population. In the Asia-Pacific Region, several international and national POPs monitoring programmes on air and human milk are available. For the air, passive sampling was conducted in Fiji in collaboration with RECETOX (Centre of Excellence in Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Brno, Czech Republic). In POPs Monitoring Project in East Asian Countries which is initiated by Japan, sampling was operated in ten countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). In China and Japan, some ambient POPs air monitoring programmes are performed. For human milk, China (including Hong Kong SAR of China), Fiji, Kiribati, Philippines and Tonga have been involved in 3rd or 4th round WHO human milk survey. China, India and Japan also have some national POPs monitoring programmes on human milk and/or blood. In addition to data on core media, the monitoring data on non-core media, such as water, were also collected. The region collaborated with the following programmes and strategic partners to obtain data on core media: • Chemicals in Environment (Ministry of the Environment, Japan) • China National POPs Monitoring • Environmental Survey of Dioxins (Ministry of the Environment, Japan) • GMP UNEP - WHO Milk Survey • POPs Monitoring Project in East Asian Countries • UNU (United Nations University, Japan) • PFOS in water around Bangkok, data in paper of Boontanon et al. (2013) Monitoring report developed by the regional organization groups and global coordination group to support the periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of Convention can be find here:

The GMP2 CEE Region dataset contains information on POPs concentrations in ambient air and human tissue - breast milk. The second global data collection that can be seen in this dataset was held during 2013–2014 and it contained information on 24 POPs listed in the Stockholm Convention when the second global data collection took place. The data were sampled between 2008 and 2014, however also older data were reported. According to the UN structure, the region of Central and Eastern Europe consists of 23 countries. For the purpose of the first evaluation, 5 countries of the Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) were added to the CEE regional report. There is no current production of POPs in the CEEC region. The main sources of POP pollution are obsolete and unused pesticides (including the ones with POPs properties) in agriculture, POPs-containing equipment, use of industrial technologies resulting in unintentional releases of dioxins and furans and formation of dioxins and furans in the open combustion. The only long-term monitoring program focused on POPs in ambient air performed in the CEE region is the integrated monitoring program at Košetice observatory in the Czech Republic which is also a part of EMEP background monitoring. Monitoring effort has been coordinated on the international (UN ECE/EMEP; Nordic Environment Research Programmes; Swedish Baltic Programme), national (Czech Republic in all environmental matrices and human tissues for more than 20 years), and local bases (City of Gdansk; Krakow) and carried out by the individual research institutions and governmental authorities according to their competence. These are often Hydrometeorological or Environmental institutes responsible also for reporting, including the international reporting. The region collaborated mainly with the following programmes and strategic partners: • AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) • EMEP (Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Programme) • GAPS (Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling network) • GMP UNEP – WHO Milk Survey • Kosetice (national programme in the Czech Republic, part of EMEP, GAPS and MONET monitoring) • MONET (Passive sampling MOnitoring NETwork) Except for the Czech Republic, no systematic and regular human biomonitoring of POPs has been performed in the Central and Eastern European countries since 1998. With regards to dioxins, dl-PCBs and marker PCBs, the 3rd and 4th round of WHO-coordinated exposure studies have given the most reliable results because, in spite of a small number of milk samples, the samples were collected, stored and shipped according to a WHO protocol and pooled samples were analyzed by the same laboratory meeting the strict QA/QC criteria.

The GMP2 WEOG dataset contains information on POPs concentrations in ambient air, human tissue - breast milk and surface water; for water-soluble fluorinated POPs only (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride). The second global data collection that can be seen in this dataset was held during 2013–2014 and it contained information on 23 POPs listed in the Stockholm Convention when the second global data collection took place. The data were sampled between 2008 and 2014, however also older data were reported. The region is not a coherent geographical unit. Its membership is divided into three continents, and The Western European and Others Group (WEOG) is composed of twenty-eight nations in Western Europe, North America, and Australasia. The WEOG ROG report is based entirely upon existing monitoring programmes. Although it is difficult to provide a good categorization, the following illustrates the range of objectives observed from the programmes contributing to the WEOG report: • Studies aimed to investigate levels and / or processes in areas close to historical local sources of POPs (e.g. HELCOM and studies in the Great Lakes region of North America such as IADN). • Studies aimed to investigate levels and / or processes in areas distant from local sources of POPs where long-range transport and other processes are believed to be important in determining environmental levels and / or human exposure (e.g. AMAP; and NCP). • Studies aimed at understanding regional and / or global transport (e.g., EMEP and GAPS) • Studies aimed at providing a wide survey of levels (e.g., WHO coordinated human milk surveys). The region collaborated with the following programmes and strategic partners to obtain data on core media: • AMAP - Arctic monitoring and Assessment Programme • EMEP - European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme • GAPS - Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling network • GMP UNEP – WHO Milk survey • IADN - Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (USA) • MONET - (Passive sampling MOnitoring NETwork) • NCP - Northern Contaminants Program (Canada) (Part of AMAP) • TOMPS - The UK Toxic Organic Micro-Pollutants Programme

The GMP2 GRULAC dataset contains information on POPs concentrations in ambient air, human tissue - breast milk and surface water; for water-soluble fluorinated POPs only (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride). The second global data collection that can be seen in this dataset was held during 2013–2014 and it contained information on 23 POPs listed in the Stockholm Convention when the second global data collection took place. The data were sampled between 2008 and 2014, however also older data were reported. The Latin America and the Caribbean Region (GRULAC) includes 33 countries, comprising a surface area greater than 20 million square kilometres (ENCARTA, 2002), contains four subregions – Andean, Caribbean, Mesoamerica and Southern Cone – each having special features and rich biodiversity. Most of the countries are parties of the Stockholm Convention and some are signatories; however, only 10 out 33 countries have completed their national implementation plans (Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Saint Lucia, Uruguay), including emission inventories for dioxins and furans, PCBs inventories and legacy persistent organic pollutant pesticides stockpiles. The region faces many problems related to pollution including persistent organic pollutants. The rich biodiversity, extreme climatic conditions, and notable differences in socio-economic development in the region require that monitoring efforts have large spatial resolution. Data coming from monitoring programmes were obtained from the GAPS and WHO Human milk survey, and specific national surveillance studies: • GAPS (Global Air Monitoring Passive Sampling) • GMP UNEP – WHO-human milk survey

GMP2 Africa Region dataset contains information on POPs concentrations in ambient air, human tissue - breast milk and surface water; for water-soluble fluorinated POPs only (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride). The second global data collection that can be seen in this dataset was held during 2013–2014 and it contained information on 23 POPs listed in the Stockholm Convention when the second global data collection took place. The data were sampled between 2008 and 2014, however also older data were reported. The Africa Region is characterized by six different climatic zones that have influence on the movement and distribution of POPs. In addition, except for large deserts in Northern and Southern Africa, the regions face challenges associated with hot and humid climatic conditions that promote growth of a myriad of pests and disease vectors. POPs have therefore been used in many sectors including agriculture, industry and public health to control pests and diseases. The region collaborated with the following programmes and strategic partners to obtain data on core media: • the MONET-Africa project coordinated by the Centre of Excellence in Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Brno, Czech Republic (RECETOX), • the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) programme coordinated by Environment Canada, • the World Health Organization (WHO) – Milk survey

The GMP3 WEOG dataset contains information on POPs concentrations in ambient air, human matrices (milk and blood) and surface water. Data from the third global data collection comes from 2014 to 2019. The presented dataset also contains data collected within earlier campaigns (1 and 2; collected till 2008 and 2014). Substances that are monitored within GMP are defined by the Stockholm Convention. The region collaborated mainly with the following programmes and strategic partners: • Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) • European Monitoring and Evaluation programme (EMEP) • Great Lakes Basin (GLB) • Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN) • WHO human milk survey