Reuters AlertNet Lite - UNEP boss says no plans to move office from Kenya

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UNEP boss says no plans to move office from Kenya

06 Feb 2007 13:45:02 GMT
Source: Reuters

NAIROBI, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) denied on Tuesday there had been any proposal to move his agency from its headquarters in Nairobi, rejecting a report in a local newspaper.

Kenya's Daily Nation said a "secret plan" had been hatched at an environment conference in Paris last week and quoted Kenya's environment minister as saying France was behind clandestine efforts to relocate UNEP from Africa.

"I have never seen that proposal in any document or heard it mentioned at any meeting," Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director, told reporters on the fringes of another major environment meeting in the Kenyan capital.

"I have no idea of the source of this rumour ... I think we should just put it to bed and focus on what the world needs."

A senior French official told the newspaper the report about relocating UNEP was untrue. Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana could not immediately be reached for comment.

In the Nation, Kibwana also questioned why Kenya and South Africa were not invited to Paris for the launch of the latest findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

UNEP was set up in Kenya in 1972, and African participants among hundreds attending its Governing Council meeting this week said they were firmly in favour of it staying put.

"We are not discussing any such proposal," Nigerian delegate Osita Anaedu told reporters. "UNEP is the only U.N. office based in a developing country and we will do all we can to protect that. It must remain in Nairobi."

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Last updated:Tue Feb 6 13:47:37 2007