The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was ordered to restore all of its important divisions to Nairobi.
Despite the fact that Unep’s headquarters are in Nairobi, African countries have claimed that the Kenya office is merely a shell because critical departments are housed in Europe, where their high-level discussions take place.
Ministers attending the UN Environment Assembly yesterday warned this had to stop.
They agreed to sign a political proclamation ordering all of these departments to return to Kenya and have their meetings in Nairobi.
Other Unep-affiliated organisations were urged to hold their meetings in Nairobi.
“(We invite) the governing bodies of all the multilateral environmental agreements, in particular those hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme, to consider convening, within their mandates, their meetings more frequently in Nairobi,” the ministers said.
They claimed that not only should the Unep offices in Gigiri be modernised, but that other UN member nations that have not yet joined the programme should do so now.
The ministers claimed that the issue had previously been resolved at the United Nations General Assembly, when members decided to strengthen the Nairobi office.
“In that regard, take note with interest of the adoption of General Assembly resolution 76/246 and underline the need to continue improving the United Nations Office at Nairobi, as the only United Nations headquarters duty station in the global South and the host of the headquarters of the Unep and, furthermore, invite the United Nations Office at Nairobi to provide more competitive services,” they said.
The ministers highlighted the importance of advancing equitable geographic distribution and gender parity among the staff of the secretariat of the Unep, particularly in professional and senior-level positions.
Currently, Africans are underrepresented in those positions, although the body is based on the continent.
Unep will now be required to regularly report to the Committee of Permanent Representatives on progress achieved on the diversity of its staff.
The agreement was signed by heads of State and government, ministers and high-level representatives, at the special session of the Unep to mark 50 years since its establishment at the KICC in 1972.
Mid last month, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to Unep Makena Muchiri, complained some of the headquarters departments of Unep are based in France and Geneva.
“We have been talking about how we bring all that together to Nairobi where Unep is headquartered,” she said.
“Unep is a big organisation taking care of other international bodies that are headquartered here. So, you cannot push that agenda too much,” she added.
