A farmer spraying herbicide on a rice field. (Pixabay/Zefe Wu)

A guide to your chemicals and waste conference. Like every two years and much under the media’s radar, a conference on chemicals and waste management will take place in Geneva. Environment ministers and officials from over 190 countries will gather to discuss how to address the dangers that toxic chemicals pose for humans and the environment.

🪑Switzerland chairs the UN Security Council. For the first time since becoming a member of the United Nations in 2002, Switzerland will be presiding over its most powerful body for the month of May. Switzerland will take over the role after a tumultuous month, during which Russia said multilateralism is in crisis, as other members of the body accused it of spreading misinformation from the New York podium.

⚽FIFA chief at the WTO. Gianni Infantino, the president of football’s global governing body, will be back in international Geneva today. This time round he’ll be meeting with the World Trade Organization’s director general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the press, to promote the upcoming women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, or as the organisations put it, for “making trade score for women”.

🇦🇫UN to discuss Afghanistan’s future in Doha. Today and tomorrow, secretary general António Guterres will host a closed-door meeting with special envoys in Qatar on a “durable way forward” amid crippling restrictions posed by the Taliban. The gathering comes just days after the Security Council called on the country’s authorities to lift bans on women and girls, a rare sign of solidarity within the body. A recent UNDP report outlines the country’s dependence on aid.