UN / ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME

The General Assembly has passed a resolution to strengthen the UN Environment Programme headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. The agency's Executive Director Achim Steiner says this was “truly a historic moment.” UNEP

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:58
• Production Date: 24 December 2012
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME - UNEP
• Subject Topical: ENVIRONMENT
• MAMS Id: U121224b

Description

STORY: UN / ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME
TRT: 1.58
SOURCE: UNEP /UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 21 DECEMBER 2012 NAIROBI, KENYA / 21 DECEMBER 2012, NEW YORK CITY / FILE

Shotlist

UNEP - 21 DECEMBER 2012 NAIROBI, KENYA

1. Wide shot, UNEP Headquarters exterior
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director:
“Today the General Assembly has enacted a decision that was part of the Rio+20 outcome document to strengthen and upgrade the United Nations Environment Programme”

UNTV - 21 DECEMBER 2012, NEW YORK

3. Wide shot, General Assembly
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Nawaf Salam, Permanent Representative of Lebanon to the United Nations:
“We now take a decision on draft resolution entitled, Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme on its 12th Special Session and on the implementation of section 4C entitled Environment pillar in the context of sustainable development of the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The Second Committee adopted the resolution without a vote. May I take it that the assembly wishes to do likewise? It is so decided.”
5. Wide shot, General Assembly

UNEP - 21 DECEMBER 2012 NAIROBI, KENYA

6. SOUNDBITE (English) Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director:
“For the first time in 40 years, Member States have rewritten the constitution of UNEP and by giving it universal membership they have given it a whole new dimension in terms of its role, its focus and its importance in the United Nations family. It marks a watershed moment, both in terms of environmental governance, because the future Governing Councils of UNEP will not only be focussed in terms of a 58-member Governing Council on governing the United Nations Environment Programme, its Secretariat, its Programme of Work, but now, with universal membership, with all Member States of the United Nations General Assembly participating equally in this body, become a centre of gravity for the environmental governance agenda and the environmental dimension of sustainable development. For UNEP, for the environmental community, but also for sustainable development, this, I believe, is truly a historic moment.”
7. Pan left, UNEP Headquarters exterior

FILE – UNTV – 1972, STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

8. Various shots, delegates arrive for UN Conference on the Human Environment

Storyline

World governments on Friday (21 December) upgraded the global status of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) by opening its governing body to all 193 UN Member States.

In a resolution establishing universal membership of the former 58-member UNEP Governing Council, the UN General Assembly signalled it was reinforcing the agency’s role as the world’s leading environmental authority for setting the global environmental agenda.

UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner said “for the first time in 40 years, Member States have rewritten the constitution of UNEP and by giving it universal membership they have given it a whole new dimension in terms of its role, its focus and its importance in the United Nations family.”

Steiner said that with the equal participation of all Member States, UNEP “will become a centre of gravity for the environmental governance agenda and the environmental dimension of sustainable development.”

He said this was “truly a historic moment.”

The resolution renders UNEP eligible to receive “secure, stable and increased financial resources” from the regular budget of the UN, and “calls for other UNEP donors to increase their voluntary funding,” according to a UNEP pres release.

The General Assembly established UNEP a year after the UN’s 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, which is widely credited with having placed global environmental issues on the international agenda, called for the creation of a specialized agency within the UN Secretariat to help States coordinate environmental policy.

For its part, today’s General Assembly resolution marks the first major structural change to UNEP in its four-decade history.