The United Nations Office in Nairobi is without doubt an important facility, not only because it serves as the global headquarters for the flagship environmental agencies of UNEP and UN-Habitat, but also because it is the headquarters of UN agencies in most of Africa.

For this reason, UNON and its Gigiri Complex stand as a living testimony to the involvement of Africans in the most important government of the world, the United Nations. More often than not, many Africans do not appreciate the fact that they are part of the UN family by right.

Indeed, some of the UN interventions on the continent are executed in a manner likely to suggest that they are philanthropic interventions.  Indeed, the Kenyan government must be praised for the foresight that led founding President Kenyatta to donate the pristine and ever-green land on which the UNON stands today.

From time to time and especially since the last decade, insinuation to the effect that UNEP and UN-Habitat could be moved from Nairobi to some other part of the continent or even out of the continent breaks to the surface.

Fortunately, such intimations have always been met with firm rebuttals from the UN hierarchy including from the UNON Executive Directors. Indeed, incumbent Dr Achim Steiner, the subject of our cover story this month, has also weighed in on this matter.

Still, it would not be farfetched to treat the supposed salivations for UNON and Gigiri with a wary eye. For one, when Kenyatta, in his magnanimity donated the hundreds of acres of land to the UN in the early 1970s, matters environmental were not given as serious treatment as is the case in this Millennium.

It is therefore not wholly implausible for nations, interests and lobbies with major stakes in hot issues such as climate change, global warming, carbon credits and other emerging environmental –isms to plot to take UNEP and UN-Habitat away from Nairobi.

Indeed, those who have followed the saga of the surreptitious relocation of the headquarters of the two agencies have specifically mentioned France and South Africa as would-be beneficiaries. Those in the know have also pointed out that it is specifically because of the vibrancy of Kenya’s media and the solidarity of African nations that plans for the relocation of UNEP and its human settlements counterpart have been foiled in the past.

It is against this background that Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs deserves plaudits for lobbying hard for the upgrading of UNON to class B status. If there is anything that affirms the commitment of the international community to the continued stay of the UN regional office for Africa headquarters in Nairobi, then it is this recent boost in its status.

However, our inquisitions into the matter indicate that the new status does not let Nairobi’s Gigiri, veritably the most important diplomatic district in the region, off the hook. Some sources indicate that plans are afoot to retain UNON in Gigiri but relocate UNEP and UN-Habitat for various above-board and subterranean reasons.

One reason advanced for this move is that Nairobi is prone to hyper rates of crime. That accusation falls flat given recent efforts that have brought urban crime under control. Another point of view is that many of the relevant environmental think tanks and research outfits are based either in Europe or North America and that one of these locations should be the logical home of UNEP and UN-Habitat. We need not belabour the flimsiness of this line of thought.

Beyond considerations such as equity and equality of nations, the UN’s presence in Nairobi has served as a magnate for diplomacy in the African region. Since Africa is saddled with internecine wars and other depravations, the UN Gigiri office serves the important role of propping up peace building and conflict resolution mechanisms on the continent.

In any case, the international community must never lose sight of the fact that African countries are equally paying members of the UN. It is exactly for the reason that African nations feel like they are playing second fiddle to their wealthy counterparts of the North that the AU has been, for example, lobbying for two permanent and five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

In the final analysis, an attempt to move the UN regional headquarters from Nairobi will be a major diplomatic blunder, one that must be avoided at all costs

Beyond considerations such as equity and equality of nations, the UN’s presence in Nairobi has served as a magnate for diplomacy in the African region.