UN-Habitat Executive Director Dr. Joan Clos on Monday hailed the joint collaboration of UN-Habitat and its sister agency, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) now celebrating its 40th anniversary.
“Together, UN-Habitat and UNEP are engaged in promoting low-carbon practices in the housing sector by means of capacity building and technical assistance to governments and housing institutions,” he said. “We are developing important joint programmes on urban mobility, whereby UNEP’s leadership in the areas of technology for cleaner vehicles is combined with UN-Habitat’s expertise in urban planning.”
He made the remarks in a keynote address at the opening of the UNEP’s 12th Special Session of the Governing Council / Global Ministerial Environment. The meeting is being held at the agency’s headquarters in Nairobi 20-22 February 2012.
Dr. Clos said the two agencies had been collaborating on climate change for a number of years through numerous partnerships. “One example is in the Pacific where our distinctive approaches are safeguarding the future. With UNEP leading a comprehensive environmental cost-benefit-analysis and UN-Habitat providing detailed city-wide vulnerability analysis. National and local leaders will be able to make use of the results of these efforts in making decisions about the environment and urban areas,” he said.
As we move towards Rio+20 Earth Summit in June, he said, “I am happy to note that the critical role cities play in ensuring sustainability is increasingly being recognized on the international agenda.” |
