President of the 79th Session of the United Nations General
Assembly, Philemon Yang and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi in Nairobi/HANDOUTKenya is poised to host three new United Nations global offices by the end of next year, which will make Nairobi a critical hub of the organisation’s operations.
The UN is planning to set up offices in Nairobi to host the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP), and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN WOMEN) programmes.
In a consultative meeting held at the Prime Cabinet
Secretary Musalia Mudavadi’s office, it was noted that Kenya’s strategic
positioning as a logistic and financial hub gives it an edge in supporting the
UN’s role in multilateral diplomacy and advancing global and regional
priorities.
“We are working very closely, and Kenya is looking forward for UN’s support with a commitment to make Nairobi a very critical hub for the UN’s operations both in the country, regionally, and across the globe,” said Mudavadi.
“Kenya will be leveraging on the UN’s existing presence in the country and the opportunities presented by its operations in the greater horn, east and central Africa sub-regions,” added Mudavadi.
The new offices will be in addition to the current two global offices, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN-HABITAT, which have their headquarters in Nairobi.
Mudavadi said the government is engaging and working with various stakeholders to ensure it provides a conducive and enabling environment with all legal frameworks for the plan to materialise.
He was speaking at his Railways HQ offices, when he hosted the visiting President of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Philemon Yang for a high-level consultative meeting on Wednesday.
“I want to thank the government of Kenya for receiving the United Nations here in Nairobi. I have heard and personally seen many things happening from both sides and the collaboration and partnership on the Kenyan side is tremendous.” said Yang.
The meeting brought together key representatives from the United Nations, Nairobi offices led by the Director-General of the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON),
Zainab Bangura and senior Kenyan government officials including Principal Secretaries Korir Sing’Oei (Foreign Affairs), Joseph Mbugua (Roads), Julius Koris (Water) and Aurelia Rono (Parliamentary Affairs) among others.
Bangura said the Kenyan government has been instrumental in ensuring a steady growth of UN operations.
“The Nairobi duty station is the fastest growing duty station in the United Nations, and it is the only duty station progressively recording a steady growth. As we speak, we have 86 UN offices in Kenya, 73 in Gigiri in the capital city Nairobi. When the UNEP was set-up, we had only 300 staff, now we are boasting of 6,500 staff, 11,000 families and dependants,” she said.