Kenya is rooting for the strengthening of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the two UN institutions hosted by Kenya in Nairobi.
The other one is UN Habitat also housed in the expansive United Nations Complex in Gigiri.
Environment, Climate and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya said Kenya must remain true to the spirit of consolidating and strengthening the UNEP functions in Nairobi as agreed at the Rio+20 Summit 11 years ago.
She spoke on Friday at the closing session of the 6th UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) held from 26th to 1st March.
"This is important to enable this forum and its anchor body, UNEP, to discharge their mandates effectively to all of us," the CS said.
Tuya said Kenya is deeply committed to multilateralism as one of the ways to effectively address the global climate crisis.
She noted that from the 6th UN Environment Assembly, the delegates came up with 20 resolutions and 2 decisions on global import.
The CS said multilateralism is important to enable the world to tackle the numerous and ever-increasing multi-faceted challenges in the environment domain.
CS Tuya said the UNEA-6 theme, 'effective, inclusive and sustainable multilateral actions to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution', mirrored the challenges facing the world.
She noted that it had taken great sacrifice on the part of the delegates to agree on the meeting's resolutions.
"While I recognise that it was not easy, we managed to collectively build consensus on the ministerial declaration and a greater majority of the resolutions. I equally note that some resolutions were withdrawn in the spirit of keeping everyone on board," she said.
"Multilateralism has proven to work, and the Nairobi Spirit of consensus building has prevailed. I thank every one of you for making it possible," she said.
Additionally, Tuya thanked UNEP for holding high-level dialogues on synergies between UN institutions, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and science policy interface saying the meetings were necessary for impactful outcomes at the country level.
The Cabinet Secretary, who was accompanied by her Ministry's head of MEAs Linda Kosgei, urged UNEP to organise more such interactive dialogues in future UNEA sessions to help bridge existing policy gaps and inconsistencies.
Tuya thanked the President of UNEA-6 Leila Benali and the Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development of the Kingdom of Morocco for a successful meeting and congratulated the Chairman of the Environment Authority of the Sultanate of Oman Abdullah Bin Ali Amri for being elected President of UNEA-7 scheduled for December 8 to 12 next year in Nairobi.
"Kenya thanks the outgoing UNEA 6 Presidency, the Kingdom of Morocco, together with the bureau for running the affairs of this session in an extraordinary manner. I also extend appreciation to the Executive Director, Inger Anderson and her team for facilitating this very important intergovernmental process.
"To the Government of Oman, Kenya extends sincere congratulations on your election as the incoming President of UNEA-7. I equally congratulate the entire members of the UNEA-7 bureau," CS Tuya said.