LONDON: A planned budget hike and wider representation should strengthen the UN's lead environment agency and help sharpen an international focus that was sorely lacking this week at the green summit in Rio de Janeiro.
In one tangible outcome of the conference, a draft text to be signed off on Friday says countries will upgrade the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), bringing its budget more in line with a plethora of other, better-funded UN bodies that also handle green issues less directly.
A UNEP report last year listed 37 UN funds, programs, agencies, conventions and related organizations dealing with environmental management.
"The many competing actors, funds and initiatives often undermine the effectiveness of environmental financing," said analyst Maria Ivanova in a recent Worldwatch Institute report, "State of the World 2012".
It would be difficult to consolidate those bodies and funds, given that many are legal instruments with their own secretariats, but they need better harnessing.
"We have hundreds of legal instruments," said the UN Secretary-General of the Rio conference, Sha Zukang.
"The question is what to do with them. They all have different memberships, mandates, budget resources. Some coordination is necessary. We need a parent body," he told Reuters earlier this week.
UNEP, founded in 1972, is that parent body. Its expanded task will be to deliver a clearer voice and vision on the environment across issues including health, education, farming, trade, energy, desertification, climate, chemicals and biodiversity.
In 2010, UNEP's budget of $217 million ranked far below the $4.7 billion allocated to the UN development program and $4 billion for the World Food Program, according to the Worldwatch Institute report.
Following Rio, its budget could rise by $10 million to $50 million a year, experts say, due to higher contributions both from the central United Nations pot and voluntary sources.
Agencies have bigger budgets partly because they have wider networks of offices and staff, but the money also reflects to some degree the ranking of the topic.
Strengthening UNEP is meant to prop up the environment leg of sustainable development. The term "sustainable development" was coined 25 years ago and states that human welfare depends on a combination of environmental, social and economic priorities.
Sustainable development was the central theme at Rio.
As well as securing more funding for UNEP, the Rio summit also is expected to back wider representation.
UNEP's governing council currently comprises only 58 environment ministers. That will be expanded to universal membership, meaning all countries.
The expected advantage, both symbolic and practical, for UNEP will be that its council will be able to take decisions (for example negotiation of a new treaty on cutting emissions) without then having to get UN General Assembly approval.
It strengthens the arm of environment ministers: An incremental step, in line with the outcome of the summit.
— Gerard Wynn is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.
