OhMyNews
Zachary Ochieng (Zach)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
According to Kibwana, the plot was hatched at an international environmental conference held in Paris last week, to which Kenya and South Africa were not invited. "Despite Kenya and South Africa being leaders in environmental matters in Africa, we were not invited and that is not something light," protested Kibwana.
Kibwana pointed an accusing finger at France, claiming it was behind the plot. "Though the meeting was held in France to discuss how to strengthen UNEP, some protagonists wanted it relocated to Europe from Nairobi," he claimed. But in a rejoinder, Laurent Stefanini, France's head of delegation, said it was not the intention of France to have UNEP relocated to Europe. "We are not in any way against Kenya hosting UNEP. That is not true," he said with finality.
It may be recalled, however, that the U.N. has been under constant pressure to relocate the UNEP to Europe. Notably in the early 1990s, some European countries claimed that Nairobi was too insecure to host a U.N. agency. Matters have now been compounded by escalating cases of insecurity in the country, with U.N. employees and other diplomats being targeted by armed gangsters. According to Kibwana, other arguments being advanced to justify the relocation include the fact that all major conventions directly related to UNEP have their headquarters outside Africa. They include, among others, the Convention on Biological Diversity headquartered in Canada, the Convention on Desertification and Climate Change, both having their headquarters in Germany. Kibwana wondered why Kenya was not invited at the Paris Conference although it currently chairs the Convention on Desertification and the one on Climate Change, besides being the host country.
Kenya is the only developing country that hosts U.N. agencies. Nairobi is the headquarters of UNEP and the United Nations Human Settlement Program (UN-HABITAT). In 1970, UNEP became the first U.N. agency to be headquartered in Kenya. Its offices were then located at Uchumi House and the Kenyatta International Conference Center (KICC) in Nairobi's Central Business District before being moved to their present location in Gigiri in 1975. It was then joined by UN-HABITAT in 1978. Currently, there are 25 U.N. agencies operating in the country, comprising a total of 75 semi-autonomous U.N. offices employing some 3000 local and international staff. This includes two U.N. programs -- UNEP and UN-HABITAT -- which have their global headquarters in Kenya, making Nairobi the only U.N. headquarters duty station in the developing world.
Since its founding in 1945 after the Second World War, the U.N. has worked to improve the well-being of millions of people throughout the world. Kenya became a member of the U.N. on Dec. 16, 1963, four days after attaining independence from Britain. U.N. entities with offices and programs in the country focus on poverty reduction, fighting hunger and promoting good governance and human rights especially for women and children. The U.N. has also helped to combat communicable diseases and HIV/AIDS, conserve and protect the environment and manage natural and man-made disasters.
Yet the current diplomatic row comes only a month after Kenya was accused by the U.N. refugee agency--the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-- of turning away Somali refugees who had crossed into the north-eastern Kenyan town of Liboi, seeking asylum. "We fully appreciate that the situation in neighboring Somalia is a serious concern to the Kenyan authorities and that governments have a responsibility to ensure border security in such situations. But Kenya also has a humanitarian obligation to allow civilians at risk to seek asylum on its territory. Most of those in Liboi are women and children and they should not be sent back to a very uncertain situation. To do so would be a transgression of the principle of non-refoulement as defined under the 1951 refugee Convention," said a statement from UNHCR.
Kenya, on the other hand, maintained that it had closed its borders fearing that the raging war in Somalia between the Ethiopian backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) would spill over into Kenya.
But the rows aside, the U.N.'s contribution to Kenya cannot be gainsaid. Besides its contribution to Kenya's development goals, the U.N. presence in the country brings significant economic benefits. The U.N. contributes more than $350 million to the Kenyan economy annually. A third of this comes from direct program assistance while the rest accrues from payment made by the U.N. to procure goods and services in Kenya and also by U.N. employees for such items like food as well as wages for domestic staff.
U.N. conference services have also indirectly contributed to the growth of tourism. For instance in 2003, the U.N. hosted 1,544 meetings, bringing in a total of 28,720 participants. In November 2004, it hosted the U.N. Security Council, only the fourth time in the history of the U.N. that the Council has met outside the New York headquarters and the second time in Africa.
The Security Council meeting was closely followed by the Nairobi Summit on a mine-free world when 600 delegates from more than 140 national governments and international organizations gathered for the Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty of 1997 designed to address the devastation caused by anti-personnel landmines.
In the field of peacemaking and peacekeeping, Kenya and the U.N. have found a common ground for collaboration, not only in the African region, but also in the world at large. With the support of the U.N., Kenya has played a crucial role in peace building in the troubled regions of the world. Kenya's participation in the U.N. peacekeeping operations spans over two decades, covering 18 missions in which more than 10,000 Kenyan troops have served in distant lands to bring hope and peace to victims of violence.
Kenya therefore stands to lose a great deal should UNEP relocate to another country.
Source: OhMyNews, Feb 10, 2007