PH Participates in 4th UN Environment Assembly

Chargé d’Affaires, a.i, Francis Maynard S. Maleon highlights the Philippines achievements in the six-month rehabilitation of Boracay and the ongoing Manila Bay clean-up at the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly. (Nairobi PE photo)

NAIROBI 29 March 2019 – The Philippines posed the question whether the world is succeeding at its efforts to clean up the environment in the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) held in Nairobi, Kenya on 11-15 March 2019. 

In its national statement, the country also reaffirmed that it is doing its share to pursue the formulation and implementation of the Philippine Sustainable Consumption and Production Plan in line with President Duterte’s directive to make environmental protection and ensuring sustainable development a top priority of his administration. 

It also highlighted the six-month rehabilitation of Boracay in 2018 and the ongoing clean-up of Manila Bay this year. 

The Philippine delegation was led by Philippine Embassy in Nairobi Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. Francis Maynard S. Maleon, which was composed of experts from the Department of Natural Resources and the Embassy.

UNEA President Siim Kissler highlighted that sustainable consumption and production should be at the core of all countries’ efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Under the overall theme of Innovative Solutions for Environmental Challenges and Sustainable Consumption and Production, UNEA-4 aims to address environmental challenges related to poverty and natural resources management, including sustainable food systems, food security and halting biodiversity loss; life-cycle approaches to resource efficiency, energy, chemicals and waste management; and innovative sustainable business development at a time of rapid technological change.

Five world leaders from Kenya, France, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and Rwanda and other delegates were welcomed to the auditorium at United Nations Environment Programme Headquarters by a choir performance, dedicated to the victims of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 which crashed on 10 March 2019 enroute from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.

The UNEA is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment. The biennial global meeting strives to find solutions to the critical environmental challenges facing the world today.

The Fifth Session of UNEA is expected to take place in the last week of February 2021. END

United Nations Environment Assembly President Siim Kissler delivers his opening remarks at the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly. (Nairobi PE photo)

The Philippine delegation composed of members of the Philippine Embassy in Nairobi and experts from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources pose for a group photo. (Nairobi PE photo)