Inger Andersen Visits CMS, AEWA and EUROBATS
Jacques Trouvilliez, Executive Secretary of AEWA (far right), briefing the newly-appointed UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Inger Andersen (second from left), during her visit to the CMS Family in Bonn © Aydin Bahramlouian
Bonn, 23 August 2019 – Inger Andersen, the newly-appointed UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), came to Bonn to meet the staff of the CMS Family as well as other Bonn-based UN agencies. The visit was part of a series of meetings in Europe, including attending the opening of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva.
Ms. Andersen addressed the entire staff of the three CMS Family Secretariats: CMS, AEWA and EUROBATS. Among the points discussed were strengthening programmatic cooperation, matters related to enhancing the administrative support to the Secretariat and broader strategic issues related to elevating attention to biodiversity.
During the staff meeting with the CMS Family, Jacques Trouvilliez, the AEWA Executive Secretary, highlighted some key items of strategic importance to AEWA: the Plan of Action for Africa, the work on sustainable use issues including the European Goose Management Platform, the climate change resilience project and the Agreement’s increased focus on seabird conservation. During the question and answer part of the meeting, Mr Trouvilliez also mentioned the process under AEWA to ban lead-shot ammunition from the environment, highlighting the importance of collaborating with UNEP on this topic.
“There is considerable scope for closer programmatic cooperation and collaboration between UNEP and AEWA, as we are delivering on-the-ground practical solutions to wider-reaching conservation issues, such as in the area of addressing environmental pollution, building climate change resilience and flyway-scale species conservation.”
Jacques Trouvilliez, AEWA's Executive Secretary
As part of her visit to the UN Bonn Campus, Ms Andersen also participated in a ‘Joint Town Hall Meeting’ alongside the Heads of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The event was facilitated by the Executive Coordinator of UN Volunteers. During her address, the Executive Director emphasized the importance of all UN agencies working together to achieve common objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in addressing the major challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, and in developing the post-2020 biodiversity framework.
She went on to note the growing global awareness and calls, especially from the younger generation, for urgent action to tackle the pressing human and environmental challenges, saying:
“The young people are demonstrating on the streets. The media is highly aware. People vote for the environment in the polling booths. And while some would turn their backs on multilateralism, very few people understand that just like migratory species that fly over borders, so too do the problems of climate, biodiversity, pollution, poverty and land degradation.”
Inger Andersen, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme
UNEP, with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, provides for the administration of the Secretariat of AEWA, as well as for CMS and EUROBATS and is a key partner in the programmatic work of many multi-lateral environment agreements.
Last updated on 09 December 2019