As an Action Programme (No. 176) under the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, the Global Estuaries Monitoring (GEM) Programme primarily aims to develop a global monitoring network to monitor environmental contaminants (e.g., pharmaceutical residues, emerging pollutants of concern, microplastics, pathogens) in major urbanised estuaries worldwide.  The GEM Programme will facilitate capacity building for monitoring through provision of training for standard sampling and analytical methods.  With concerted efforts from our global partners and inputs from stakeholders, the GEM Programme will reveal the pollution situation around the globe in estuaries, identify those that require attention and improvement, recommend priority contaminants for control, and promote best practices to combat the pollution problems thereby achieving cleaner estuaries for all.  The GEM Programme will contribute to tackling the three main challenges identified by the United Nations, namely (1) to understand and beat marine pollution, (2) to protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity, and (3) to deliver data, knowledge and technology to all.  In other words, the GEM Programme will endeavour a clean, healthy and transparent ocean.  In this presentation, I will share about the rationale behind GEM, our key partners, plan and progress, while I will listen to your feedbacks.  Welcomingly, you are cordially invited to join the GEM programme as our partners and/or project leaders.