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Backgrounder: Kenya's bid for hosting UNEP headquarters

Xinhua, May 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

At the height of clamor for an opportunity to host the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in the early 1970s, Kenya was a young nation that had just gained independence from Britain and was yet to assert its place in the complex world of geopolitics.

The cold war was at its zenith when nations competed vigorously for a chance to host the global environment body, and conventional wisdom by then was that it would be a tragic gamble for Kenya to earn such a prized slot.

Powerful countries in the North were unwavering in their quest to host UNEP and deny their counterparts in the global south that position.

As diplomatic maneuvers reached their peak, Kenya flexed its muscle and mobilized friendly nations especially from the global south to support its quest to host UNEP.

Led by the country's founding father, Jomo Kenyatta, the east African nation used every diplomatic arsenal at its disposal to lobby for a chance to host UNEP.

These revelations were made recently by the outgoing UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner, who hailed the post independence Kenyan government for outmaneuvering powerful rivals to host the global environmental body in 1972.

"Kenya competed against powerful countries to host UNEP, and I am proud to say the last 44 years have been a remarkable journey of friendship with this wonderful country," Steiner said.

He spoke on May 18 during a media briefing on the second edition of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) opened here in Nairobi Monday.

Steiner stated that Nairobi has earned the enviable title of "World's environmental capital" in the last four decades since it hosted the headquarters of UNEP.

In retrospect, Kenya's titanic battle to become the headquarters of UNEP had its fair share of hits and misses, but Nairobi was determined to emerge the winner.

As the nation's founding president, Kenyatta took it as a patriotic duty to personally spearhead the campaign to host UNEP and his gamble paid off.

He dispatched his then foreign minister Njoroge Mungai to foreign capitals on numerous occasions to lobby for Kenya to host UNEP.

Kenya managed to convince its allies in the north and south that it had the capacity to host the newly created United Nations environmental agency.

The land on which the headquarters of UNEP sits in Nairobi was donated by the Kenyan government. Endit