Ms. Kakuko Yoshida is Global Coordinator of Chemicals and Pollution Action Subprogramme of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Until 31st October 2021, she was the Chief Technical Advisor to the project CounterMEASURE II for Plastic Free Rivers in Asia and the Pacific. With experience over 25 years, Kakuko has led programmes and projects on environmental assessment, air pollution, chemicals and waste management, conservation education, and environment and health, in Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America and Caribbean.

The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, usually known as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent the transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs).