Geneva, July 14: The CITES Standing Committee has unanimously decided to review the hosting arrangements for the CITES Secretariat following the release of the UN Joint Inspection Unit report on 'Post-Rio+20 Review of Environmental Governance within the United Nations System.'
The Joint Inspection Unit, as the UN's independent external oversight body, has come to the conclusion that it may be time for UNEP to no longer administer convention secretariats, such as CITES, and for this administrative relationship to be managed directly with the service provider itself, either the UN Office of Nairobi or the UN Office of Geneva or bothi. Examples are provided in the report of how the UNFCCC is administered and there are many other good examples of successful hosting arrangements.
At the 65th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee, the Committee Chair, Øystein Størkersen, stated that: "In light of the advice of the UN Joint Inspection Unit, I think it is incumbent upon this Committee to look into the matter more deeply in the lead up to CoP17 in 2016. In making this suggestion, I note that there is an expectation that reports of the UN Joint Inspection Unit are brought to the attention of relevant governing bodies."
The agreed terms of reference for the Working Group are to:
- Review the observations and findings in the UN Joint Inspection Unit Report of 2014 titled 'Post-Rio+20 Review of Environmental Governance within the United Nations System' insofar as they relate to the hosting arrangements for the CITES secretariat;
- Explore the various models that exist within, or are linked to, the UN system for the hosting of convention secretariats, including different models within UNEP;
- Consider the advantages and disadvantages of the various hosting models for the CITES Secretariat, including retaining the status quo; and
- Outline the steps that would need to be taken if the current hosting arrangements were to be changed.
Chair Størkersen stated that in proposing the creation of the working group he wished to make it very clear that he had no predetermined view of the optimal hosting arrangements and the conclusion may well be that we are best placed retaining the status quo.
"However, I do feel it is time to have a more considered look into this issue in light of the UN Joint Inspection Unit report and given our own experience gained over many years" concluded Chair Størkersen.
The full report of the UN Joint Inspection Unit can be found at: /sites/default/files/eng/com/sc/65/Inf/E-SC65-Inf-11.pdf
iThereby allowing UNEP to focus on where it has a clear comparative advantage, namely with programme, financing and United Nations system-wide synergies.