A draft resolution has been presented on international environmental governance (IEG) during a recent meeting at UN headquarters in New York.

During a meeting of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) informal process on strengthening IEG held on 2 May 2008, Co-Chairs Peter Maurer (Switzerland) and Claude Heller (Mexico) presented a draft resolution entitled “Strengthening the environmental activities in the United Nations system.” Noting that the discussions on IEG do not take place in a vacuum, the Co-Chairs underlined that the draft IEG resolution is an attempt to keep related processes, such as those on climate change, system-wide coherence, management decisions of UNEP, and others, in mind, while offering support to other parts in the UN system.
The operative part of the draft resolution follows the seven building blocks that were presented in the Options Paper from June 2007. The blocks deal with scientific assessment, monitoring and early warning capacity, agency coordination, MEAs, regional processes, the Bali Strategic plan, IT, partnerships and advocacy, and funding.
The draft resolution suggests that the Environment Management Group (EMG) is placed under the direct authority of the UN Secretary-General to raise its profile, while its management would remain under the Executive Director of UNEP. To facilitate inter-agency planning and coordination, the resolution requests UNEP’s Executive Director to submit an annual consolidated appeal containing needs, planned activities and estimated funding levels for all environmental capacity building activities in the UN system, including for MEAs and for the implementation of the Bali Strategic Plan.
On financing, the resolution suggests the creation of a Global Environmental Financial Tracking System, a web-based database relying on voluntary self-reporting by donors and recipients to provide transparent information on multilateral and bilateral financial flows for environmental activities.
The resolution acknowledges that diverse views have been presented on the broader transformation of IEG system. In this regard, the Co-Chairs indicated that member States had expressed a preference for a step by step approach to improve the present system. On steps forward, the resolution suggests to continue the informal consultations during UNGA’s 63rd session to discuss the broader IEG transformation and the interaction among different intergovernmental bodies, and to assess progress achieved at UNGA’s 64th session.
The Co-Chairs announced that the first feedback session on the draft resolution is tentatively scheduled for 21 May 2008.
Links to further information
The draft resolution
Co-Chairs’ talking points, 2 May 2008