Half a century after it was created as the world’s leading environment institution, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is facing a test of identity. UNEP continues the strive to fulfil its mission “to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.” However, its unique identity is being challenged, drastically affecting its leadership position. While UNEP has been behind the most serious work on to integrate environmental science with policy, its name as independent international agency has been largely concealed, to be increasingly viewed as a department of the UN Secretariat. Some media outlets have even attributed reports published by UNEP to the UN Environment Department, a non-existent entity. So why was UNEP, the longstanding international agency, with its autonomous governing assembly, that had been leading global environmental action for almost a decade, dropped from the limelight?
This was one of the repercussions of a unilateral measure taken by a former UNEP Executive Director during his short tenure between 2016 and 2018. Without going back to the UN secretariat or UNEP governing bodies, he had unilaterally mandated dropping the word “Programme” from the name, changing it to "UN Environment", and banning the established acronym UNEP, even in social media domains.
He certainly had good intentions, most notably to simplify things for ordinary people who often do not understand the meaning of vague sentences and acronyms that are common to international reports. He once confided to me, in a meeting upon his appointment, that when he started his public career, he used to ask his grandmother to read the drafts of his speeches and reports, in order to amend what she could not comprehend. I was excited about his approach, as I shared his view that what primarily hinders the messages of international organizations reaching decision-makers and the public alike is the volume of ambiguity and jargon, which prevents turning them into public policies. He envisioned transforming UNEP meetings from a "dialogue of the deaf" among experts living in a virtual world and officials looking for solutions, into a dialogue that uses comprehensible language, and that would lead to measurable results. He also wished to deliver environmental issues directly to the public at large, so that people would be an essential part of the change. As a person who started my career with UNEP in 1977 under Mostafa Tolba, and continued to be associated with it in different capacities after I left to pursue another path, I couldn’t agree more.
However, in practice he failed to deliver these good intentions. Bringing the environmental message directly to the people did not necessitate traveling away from UNEP headquarters in Nairobi for 529 out of 668 days – the entire length of the ambitious Director’s tenure. Although travel irregularities was the official reason given for the forced exit, the real damage done was to single-handedly change the name and identity of this deep-rooted international agency. A well-established brand name, which was built over half a century, was systematically destroyed. Despite repeated warnings that the UN Environment was an expression devoid of meaning, especially when translated to languages such as Arabic, the change was enforced and all attempts to challenge it failed, which exposed a serious flaw. To make matters worse, millions of dollars were wasted on re-branding across the board, from letterheads and publications to social media, including domain names and e-mail addresses. People were unable to understand whether UN Environment stood for an initiative, a department, an office, a program, or an organization. This revealed a significant deficiency in governance within the United Nations, for how could the director of a UN agency pass such a radical change without the approval of the Secretariat and UNEP’s governing bodies?
Upon his departure, UNEP started to restore its original name in full, with Programme back. But after 3 years, the UNEP acronym returned only to texts and verbal presentations, but not on top of publications, online portals or letterheads, where it had always been an integral part of the famous logo. It was obvious that the damage would take long to repair, as reflected in various media outlets, which continue to portraying UN Environment Programme as a department within the UN Secretariat, as long as UNEP, as a proper name not only an acronym, is still hidden. Would anybody have dared to switch the "United Nations Development Programme" to "United Nations Development", "Food and Agriculture Organization" to "United Nations Food and Agriculture" or "United Nations Children's Fund" to "United Nations Children", and erase UNDP, FAO and UNICEF?
International agencies legally fall under two types. The specialized agencies, which are 17 autonomous international organizations governed by their member states, coordinate their work with the United Nations through negotiated agreements. Among these are the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The international programs, of which there are 14 including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), are agencies with their own governing bodies made up of country representatives, but they are subject to the rules of the UN Secretariat and their heads are nominated by the UN Secretary-General in consultation with regional country groups, and subsequently elected by the UN General Assembly. If the removal of the word "programme" from UNEP’s name aimed to bypass the failure to formally transform the agency into an autonomous organization, as had been attempted several times over the years, it became evident that this had only backfired by diminishing its standing as a great global agency to a mere UN department.
The role expected of UNEP is to lead international environmental action. It was transformed from a small secretariat that included a few dozen dedicated staff when it was founded back in 1972, into a big organization today with around 1,000 employees overseeing hundreds of programs and initiatives and coordinating the work of many international environmental treaties and agreements. With the adoption of Agenda 2030, UNEP’s main task became managing the implementation of the environmental content within the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Instead of wasting time and effort on name change, it would have been more beneficial to focus on achieving UNEP’s mandate and strengthening its position as the pillar of environmental policy within the United Nations system. One of its most important tasks is to pursue collaboration and partnership with various international agencies, by developing specific environmental initiatives led by specialized bodies, to avoid duplication and overlap with the work of other organizations. For example, matters related to food safety and security would be handled by FAO, health by the WHO, and environmental education by UNESCO.
Another UNEP priority is to constantly review international environmental conventions and agreements, comparing the set goals to actual achievements, in order to close gaps and improve performance.
Besides enhancing the scientific content of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) issued periodically by UNEP, the science-policy aspects should be strengthened, so the report can respond better to current challenges and serve as a useful tool for changing environmental policies at the national level, not only provide abstract information and intangible ideas.
Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the true measure of an organization’s success should be what it achieves, not what it promises. This requires a periodic performance appraisal, undertaken by an independent and external specialized consultant. While international funds adopt this procedure by subjecting their work to periodic review by an external consultant, this has not happened so far at UNEP.
Millions spent on changing UNEP name would have been better used to conduct a comprehensive review of the agency’s work and performance, by qualified external consultants. UNEP needs to confirm its unique identity as the world environment leader, not an environment outpost in Nairobi. This might be the most urgent task for the current UNEP leadership.