South Africa welcomes the adoption of the Rio+20 outcomes by the Sixty Seventh Session of the United Nations General Assembly, particularly paragraph 88 on the strengthening and upgrading United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The agreement reached at Rio plus 20 was to strengthen UNEP in various areas which included several key elements such as, establishing a universal membership in the Governing Council of UNEP, ensuring stable, adequate and increased financial resources, enhancing UNEP’s ability to coordinate within the UN system and consolidating, progressively, the headquarters functions of UNEP.
In this regard, the strengthening of UNEP as the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda and promoting the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system is crucial for developing nations particularly Africa.
Therefore, in this session we should address in detail the element of universal membership with the view of enhancing full and effective participation of developing countries in the Governing Council. We should ensure that, participation in the decision making process of the governing council reflect the geographical representation of Member States.
In this regard, we need to ensure participation in decision- making of the governing and subsidiary bodies should be based on the principle of universality and equality of states. Furthermore, our discussion on the universal membership of UNEP, we should consider the need for enhanced UNEP ‘support and presence at both regional and national level.
We call for the consideration increasing the financial resources to UNEP in order to discharge its responsibilities as the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.
We further, reiterate our support for having a strengthened UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya which should include strengthening the human, technical and financial capacity. Currently the UNEP’s environment fund is still voluntary and UNEP will require adequate and predictable funding which may not be sufficiently addressed through voluntary funding.
Therefore the fundamental question which should be addressed is the implication of strengthened UNEP particularly for developing in terms of securing predictable financial contributions in implement paragraph 88 of the future we want as agreed upon in Rio+20.
We made great strides at Rio+20 and we now need a strengthened UNEP to among other things provide the coordination role towards the implementation of global ten year framework programme on sustainable consumption and production. UNEP should assist developing countries in particular to implement this global framework.
I thank you!
