By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 9 1997 (IPS)

One of the United Nations’ primary environmental bodies will come under scrutiny at a Special Session of the 185-member U.N. General Assembly.

“The Special Session would like to seriously look at how useful the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) would be in the future,” Ambassador Razali Ismail of Malaysia, President of the General Assembly, told IPS.

Razali, who is to preside over the Jun. 23-27 Special Session, says the Nairobi-based UNEP lacks direction, is battling problems of governance, and is struggling to cope with a shortage of resources. And yet, he says, “everybody wants UNEP to be able to play a pivotal role on the issues of environment and sustainability.”

The Special Session is being planned to review the state of the global environment five years after the June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Asked if the proposal for a World Environment Organisation (WEO) will come up, Razali said “it is something that will take time to develop.”

The proposal for the creation of a supra-environmental body is talked about in U.N. circles. But like the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the proposed WEO would likely function outside the United Nations.

International environmental issues are currently handled by several bodies, including UNEP, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

“I would prefer an enhanced role for UNEP or rather see UNEP become a U.N. specialised agency,” Razali says.

UNEP is currently but a U.N. “programme” as opposed to a specialised agency, as in the case of the World Health Organisation (WHO) or the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“UNEP is a very important function of the United Nations, and it should be kept within the United Nations,” Razali added.

Britain, Spain, and the United States announced earlier this year that they were withholding their contributions from a financially ailing UNEP, arguing that a handful of developing nations were blocking attempts to reform the U.N. body.

The three countries together contribute between 25 and 50 percent of UNEP’s fast-dwindling annual budget, UNEP Executive Director Elizabeth Dowdeswell has said. But she has expressed confidence they will not withdraw — because all three “are very committed to a strong U.N. environmental programme.”

UNEP budgets have been on the skids over the last few years, declining from 160 million dollars in 1991-92 to 75 million dollars in 1998-99.

The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) produced a 34-page report in February that was critical of UNEP. Faced with declining resources, managers have not yet made all of the necessary hard choices, the report said.

“Much staff time and energy has been spent in paring down programmes, resulting in less time to think or to do environmental work,” it pointed out. “This has reduced the number of discernible results, leading to reduced donor confidence and lower contributions, and in turn to further programme reductions.”

At the time of its creation in 1972, UNEP was the sole multilateral body concerned with the environment.

“It was seen as having a distinct role within the U.N. system: to identify emerging environmental problems and help to forge an international consensus on their solution.” But as the environment became a major international issue, many other U.N. agencies started to involve themselves in the environmental field, the report adds.

“The exclusive role of UNEP was progressively undermined,” notes the report. The turning point was the Earth Summit. The UNEP Secretariat “was given a minimal role in organising the conference.”

The conference was important, however, in establishing a global consensus on solutions to some environmental issues, many of which UNEP had helped to bring to international attention. Much of the responsibility for the Earth Summit follow-up was given to the Global Environment Facility, which is administered by UNEP, the UNDP, and the World Bank. But UNEP accounted for only a little more than one percent of the GEF portfolio.

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