Kenya and UNEP to Host First-Ever UN Environment Assembly in June
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Invitation to Joint Government of Kenya-UNEP Press Briefing
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and other High Level Representatives from over 193 UN Member and Observer States, UN Heads of Agencies, Business and Civil Society to attend
Who: Ambassador Martin Kimani, Kenya's Permanent Representative to UNEP
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director
When: Thursday, 29 May 2014 at 9:30 am
Where: Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi
The First UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) will convene in Nairobi, Kenya, from 23 to 27 June 2014. This marks a historic milestone in UNEP's 43-year history and is expected to be attended by delegations from over 170 countries.
The UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, the President of the UN General Assembly, Ministers of Environment and Foreign Affairs and Chief Executives of a number of international organisations are set to attend the newly-established UNEA that will bring together over 1200 high-level participants from government, business and civil society.
UNEA is the UN's highest-level platform for decision making on environment that is tasked to chart a new course in the way the international community addresses environmental sustainability challenges.
At UNEA - under the slogan A Life of Dignity for All - Ministers and international leaders will gather to discuss two key sustainable development and environment topics of current international concern, namely:
• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Post-2015 Development Agenda as follow-up from Rio+20 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and
• The illegal trade in wildlife to address the escalation in poaching and surge in related environmental crime.
To complement the Ministerial discussions UNEA will also see the convening of two Symposia that address two key aspects of environmental sustainability, namely:
Firstly, the environmental rule of law through the gathering of key representatives of the international judicial community, including chief justices, attorney generals and judges.
And secondly, the role of finance in the Green Economy by bringing to Nairobi and UNEA the leaders from the world of business, finance and industry.
For Kenya, hosting UNEA will mean that the attention of world's leading agencies, experts and activists in environmental management will be on Nairobi. As such, the country's enormous potential to develop a Green Economy will be on show as never before, with global decisions made having concrete consequences for all Kenyans.
Ambassador Martin Kimani, Kenya's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Mr. Achim Steiner, will brief journalists about the state of preparations for this landmark event, its significance and the main topics that will be discussed during the assembly.