By IPS Correspondents
BONN, May 30 1998 (IPS)

New proposals to reform and strengthen United Nations activities in the environmental and human settlement sectors will tabled in Geneva next month, according to the executive director of the U.N. environment programme (UNEP), Klaus Toepfer.

Toepfer, former German minister for environment, also heads the Nairobi-based U.N. Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT), and is chairman of thwe 13-member task force on environment and human settlements, set up in March by the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The task force includes representatives of national governments of the United Nations, and those of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“We have the task of reviewing existing structures and arrangements through which environment and environment-related activities are carried out within the United Nations,” Toepfer explained Thursday on the eve of the task force’s third meeting which will continue until Saturday.

“From Bonn, we will go on to Geneva to give finishing touches to our report which we plan to submit to the U.N. Secretary- General on June 15,” said Toepfer.

The review of the existing structures is taking place with particular reference to those departments, funds and programmes that report to Annan, it is also taking into account the relevant programmes and activities of the specialised agencies, he said.

The task force will focus in its report particularly on the distinctive functions of policy, development of norms and standards, programme development and implementation and financing, as well as relationships amongst these functions.

The objective is to “optimise the work and effectiveness of the U.N. environmental work at the global level and of UNEP as the leading environmental organisation or authority”, according to the task force’s terms of reference.

Diplomatic sources believed task force members might end up suggesting UNEP as the prinipal source of environmental input into the work of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), which was headed by Toepfer in the aftermath of the Earth Summut, June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.

The task force members include Maria Julia Alsogaray, secretary for natural resources and sustainable developmentof Argentina, Julia Carabias Lillo, Mexico’s minister of natural resources and fisheries, and Antigua and Barbados’ deputy permanent representative to the U.N., John Ashe.

Other members are: Ghana’s educations minister Christina Amoako- Nuama; Norway’s minister of environment, Guro Fjellanger; Michael Zammit-Cutajar, executive secretary, U.N. climate change secretariat (UNFCCC); Nitin Desai, U.N. under-secretary-general; Sweden’s permanent representative to UNEP and UNCHS, Lars-Goran Engfeldt; and U.N. assistant secretary general Jean-Pierre Halbwachs.

Former UNEP executive director Mostafa K. Tolba, now president of the International Centre for Environment and Development, former World Conservation Union (IUCN) chief Sir Martin Holdgate, the Indian NGO Development Alternative’s Ashok Khosla, and Malysia- based Tird World Network director Martin Khor are also members of the task force.

Its proposals are expected to be submitted, in line with Annan’s reform programme, later this year to the U.N. General Assembly, with a view to gearing the world body for the challenges of the next century.

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