How Kenya won battle to host Unep in Nairobi

United Nations Enviroment Assembly President Oyun Sansjaasuren (centre) speaks during a conference in Nairobi, Monday. With her are Unep Chief Scientist Jacqueline M C Glade (left) and UN Undersecretary General and Executive Director Achim Steiner. [Photo: George Njunge/Standard]

Nairobi, Kenya: As the United Nations Environment Assembly (Unea) opened in Nairobi Monday, the event marked one of the greatest diplomatic coups for a developing country.

The story of United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and Unea goes back to the 1960s when several developed countries first conspired to frustrate formation of an environmental body within the UN and then engaged in even greater conspiracy to keep the headquarters from the Third World.

Most details of the efforts are captured in the book Unep: The first 40 years, a narrative of Unep's history, and in official papers released by the British government in January 2002.

"A secret group of developed nations known as the Brussels group conspired to limit the effectiveness of the UN's first conference on the environment held in Stockholm in 1972," the papers read.

It is this conference in Sweden that gave birth to the Unep.

However, unknown to the ambitious conference organisers, who included the first director-general of Unep Maurice Strong, the Brussels Group (Britain, US, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and France) was working hard to frustrate the Stockholm event.

"The group was concerned that environmental regulations would restrict trade and also wanted to stop Unep from having a large budget. The group seemed unconcerned about what its stance would mean for poorer countries," the papers read.

The rich countries, dominant at Stockholm, also opposed the formation of the new UN agency citing the cost. Even Sweden, the sponsor of the original proposal for the UN to hold its first world environment conference, was luke-warm about the formation of Unep.

There would be more heated exchanges and underhand dealings ahead after delegates at the conference agreed to set up Unep but failed to make a decision on its location.

The Stockholm delegates were so exhausted during the passing of the resolution that they left it to the General Assembly to decide where it would be located.

The proposed locations included Geneva, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Monaco, Nicosia, New Delhi, New York, Valetta and Vienna.

When the Kenyan delegation led by former ambassador Joseph Odero-Jowi and the then Foreign Minister Njoroge Mungai offered Nairobi as the headquarters, the whole gathering was shocked because Kenya was a developing country and not the kind of developed nation the UN system preferred as headquarters of its agencies.

According to the Unep book, while addressing the gathering, the Calcutta-trained economist and colourful speaker Odero-Jowi criticised the UN for not having the headquarters of any of its agencies in the Third World.

Odero-Jowi termed the situation "unjust" and immediately called for its rectification through New York, Geneva, London and Vienna withdrawing from bidding to host Unep.

Meanwhile, Mungai lobbied the other African States within the Group of 77 to have a common stand of hosting the new body in Africa.

After coming to an agreement, Mungai moved to persuade non-African countries in the non-aligned grouping to stand with the continent.

"We said we are members of the UN, all of us, and all UN headquarters are in US or Western Europe. None in Asia, South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, so we now would like to have a headquarter in these countries. Of course I say these countries meaning Africa but it would have been difficult to say that (to non-African States) as they were also left out," Mungai is quoted saying in the book.

Odero-Jowi's speech convinced several African and Caribbean countries to side with Nairobi. By the next day, India remained Kenya's only serious rival among developing countries to host the agency.

As the event was coming to an end, the Kenyan mission to the UN gave a 17-page Press release to the delegates expounding on why the headquarters should be in Nairobi. The Press release described Kenya as a country with "crisp, pleasant and healthy climate."

It listed "an international airport handling jumbo jets, telecommunications via an earth satellite link, a big conference centre nearing completion, resident missions from 55 countries, luxury housing and hotels, schools, hospitals, computer facilities and even secretarial schools" as some of the  facilities the new body could greatly benefit from if located in Nairobi.

Before that, Kenya had failed in 1966 to bring UN Industrial Development Organisation to Nairobi with the agency going to Vienna instead.  Kenya believed it lost because the vote was taken on a secret ballot.

In one of the brightest moves in diplomatic circles, Kenya said it was pushing for "equitable geographic distribution" even though there was nothing in the UN Charter advocating for agencies to be equitably distributed.

The Kenyans rallied against the secret ballot producing a review of the rules and published the rules in English and French for the delegates.

Later on, India agreed to support Kenya's bid.