31 March 2006 marks the last
day in office of UNEP’s Executive Director, Klaus
Toepfer. Mr Toepfer, who has headed the organization
for eight years since February 1998, has presided
over a period in UNEP’s history that has seen environmental
sustainability become front page news and central
to international development goals.
Mr. Toepfer is known internationally for his commitment
to sustainable development, and for fighting for
the cause of the developing world. Among the milestones
of his tenure are a number of important environmental
agreements, including the Cartagena Protocol on
Biosafety, which addresses issue of genetically
modified organisms, and the Stockholm Convention
on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Mr. Toepfer was
also closely involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations
in support of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change,
which entered into force in February 2005 after
Russia’s ratification papers were handed to the
UN Secretary-General at UNEP headquarters in November
2004.
Mr Toepfer’s term also saw the establishment of
the annual Global Ministerial Environment Forum,
which is tasked by the UN General Assembly to review
important and emerging environmental issues, as
well as an expanded role for UNEP at the national
level with the adoption of the Bali Strategic Plan
for Technology Support and Capacity Building in
2005.
Perhaps the highlight of Mr. Toepfer’s time at UNEP
was the increased importance given to environmental
considerations by the international community. Environmental
sustainability is an explicit objective of Millennium
Development Goal 7, and a thread that runs through
all the rest. The importance of environment for
development, and the role of UNEP, was reaffirmed
at the 2005 World Summit. As Mr. Toepfer noted at
the time, the environment “is not a luxury good,
only affordable when all other problems have been
solved. It is the oxygen that breathes life into
all our aspirations for a healthier, fairer and
more stable world.”
Mr. Toepfer’s successor as UNEP Executive Director
is Mr. Achim Steiner, currently Director General
of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). He will
start his term of office as UNEP’s fifth Executive
Director on 15 June 2006. In the intervening period,
UNEP’s Deputy Executive Director, Mr. Shafqat Kakakhel,
will serve as acting Executive Director.
