•Part of the celebration is the re-launch of the book published in 2012 when the agency was marking 40 years of existence.
•The book is titled UNEP, the first 40 years: A narration written by award-winning conservationist Stanley P. Johnson.
Once it was decided by the Jomo Kenyatta government in 1972 that a global campaign be staged to bring the UN environmental agency UNEP to Nairobi, the work settled on the plate of Joseph Gordon Odero-Jowi.
Odero-Jowi served at the time in New York as Kenya’s permanent representative to UN Security Council and was 43 years old then.
His immediate boss in Nairobi was Njoroge Mungai, the country’s Foreign minister.
Odero-Jowi died in 2015 aged 86 while Mungai died in 2014 aged 88.
The UN will mark 50 years of presence in Nairobi as the global headquarters of UNEP in 2022 and plans for an elaborate fete is already taking shape.
Part of the celebration is the re-launch of the book published in 2012 when the agency was marking 40 years of existence.
The book is titled UNEP, the first 40 years: A narration written by award-winning conservationist Stanley P. Johnson.
Part of the golden year celebration started on February 21 this year when President Uhuru Kenyatta attended one of the activities at the UN headquarters in Gigiri.
The agency’s executive director Inger Andersen told the gathering that the Kenyan government had been “a generous host” and that the body had grown alongside Kenya.
The director praised Kenya for taking meaningful leadership in conserving the environment, including fighting to protect the fast diminishing biodiversity, investing in renewable energy, enforcing a sweeping plastic ban, and investing in sustainable tourism, among other actions.
“As UNEP looked to deepen environmental governance – Kenya hosted the first UN Environment Assembly in 2014 – representing a coming-of-age for the global environmental movement,” Andersen said.
It was former Kenyan ambassador to Stockholm, Sweden Joseph Muliro that recommended to the Kenyatta government to bid for the organization as the UN Conference on the Human Environment was set to be held in Sweden.
Mungai, in turn, cobbled together an independent interministerial team at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give strategic diplomatic guidance to the country in its ambitions.
According to the book, Mungai then kick-started a whirlwind global campaign that targeted his counterparts in key countries.
UK, Geneva, and New York were also campaigning to host the new agency whose creation was endorsed at the Stockholm meeting.
Mungai started by meeting the Indian foreign minister, then Brazilian before focusing on African countries.
The sole message of the campaign was that all the headquarters of UN agencies at the time were located in America and western Europe and that it was time to remember a third world country.
When the campaign ran to the wire in Stockholm, the Kenyan team was led by ambassador Jowi.
“There, to everyone’s surprise, Kenya’s delegation, led by ambassador Joseph Odero-Jowi, strongly supported by Foreign Minister Njoroge Mungai, offered Nairobi as the headquarters of the new organization,” the book reads.
Mungai is said to have jetted back to Nairobi, reportedly to avoid the embarrassment that was imminent because it was clear Kenya would lose when the vote was called.
The book describes Jowi as “a colourful speaker and an able tactician” who “brought his speech to a climax with a defiant bid for Nairobi.”
Not one agency in the UN system, he pointed out, had its headquarters in the “Third World.” This was unjust and must be rectified, he insisted and called on New York, Geneva, London and Vienna to withdraw.
In Stockholm, 13 countries-six from the west and seven from the developing world came forward demanding to host UNEP, prompting the decision on the matter to be pushed to the UN General Assembly that was to be held in September 1972.
The donkey’s work now shifted to a committee that considered the agenda for the UNGA and this is where Odero-Jowi ensured it was coming home, the book says.
The western world was now divided into supporting two capitals; Vienna in Austria and New York while the developing world narrowed to two; India and Kenya.
“It was quite a sight to see the ambassadors of the two countries (India and Kenya) arguing with each other as they walked down the hall.
The Indian ambassador was approximately five feet, one inch tall and weighed about one hundred pounds.
The Kenyan ambassador was approximately six feet, seven inches tall and weighed about three hundred pounds.
His long robes flowed as he and his entourage strode down the hall, the book reads.
The Odero-Jowi team would produce a 17-page press release to the committee members detailing the merits of Nairobi: “a “crisp, pleasant and healthy climate,” an international airport handling jumbo jets, telecommunications via an earth satellite link.
A big Kenyatta Conference Centre nearing completion, resident missions from 55 countries, luxury housing and hotels, schools, hospitals, computer facilities, even secretarial schools.”
At this point, of the 77 members from Africa, he had secured the backing of 40.
The next strategy was for Jowi to circulate a resolution to the committee members, detailing that UN should adopt the principle of equitable distribution of major offices, have the environment secretariat located in developing countries and that the matter is settled in that year’s general assembly meeting, rather than the 1973 one pushed by his opponents.
“The precise phraseology, given Odero-Jowi’s bold bid for Nairobi in his opening speech, might have seemed something of an anti-climax. There was no mention of the Kenyan capital in Odero-Jowi’s proposal. In reality, the Kenyans could not have played their hand better,” the book reads.
But opponents of Nairobi were determined, with their talking points being that Kenya had no hotels and airport, that Nairobi was too far, that the matter is determined during the next General Assembly (the 28th in 1973), and through settled by secret ballot.
To counter the maligning campaign, the book says, the Odero-Jowi team “produced, overnight, a document on embassies in Nairobi; airlines landing in Nairobi; international organisations, and hotels of international standard in English and French, to the utter amazement of all delegations.”
“Also in English and French, it reviewed the rules of procedure of the General Assembly and showed there was no requirement for secret ballots on location.”
Considering the weight of Kenya’s argument, the committee sent a UN team to Nairobi to assess its suitability as the headquarters of a UN organisation.
Odero-Jowi then sent Donald Kaniaru of the Kenya Mission to New York to Nairobi to prepare officials for this mission.
“ On meeting with Kenyan government officials, led by Dawson Mlamba, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and upon touring Nairobi, the UN team concluded that Nairobi could indeed host the secretariat, thus later settling the issue of financial implications should the secretariat be located in Nairobi,” it reads.
India swiftly withdrew its candidature in favour of Kenya, and things drastically changed in Kenya’s favour.
Odero-Jowi had the votes almost all the 77 members from developing nations were behind Nairobi.
However, there was still some opposition on the way, especially from developed countries.
For example, the book indicates that at one meeting, US Ambassador to the Economic and Social Council, Bernard Zagrion, while representing his country’s permanent representative at the UN George Bush Snr, warned that “Kenya’s polarizing” tactics would “make it harder for us to accept our commitments.”
With the G-77’s firm support, Odero-Jowi dismissed the US’s appeal in scorn.
“You deplore confrontations,” he said.
“So do we, but they are unavoidable when efforts are made to frustrate the will of the majority.”
Some developed countries are still living in the past, remembering when they used to decide matters on our behalf.
“Now it is up to us to determine what is good for us. This is a political body and it must take political decisions,” Jowi said.
Five weeks later, the committee’s decision was formally adopted by the UNGA, making Nairobi the sole host of a UN agency in the entire global south.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris