Erik Solheim elected as head UN environment agency

Erik Solheim elected UN environment chiefErik Solheim elected UN environment chief.Photo: Vegard Wivestad Grøtt / NTB scanpix

The UN General Assembly has elected former Development and Environment minister Erik Solheim as the new head of the UN Environment program.

Solheim will become the highest-ranked Norwegian in the UN system. ‘I am very happy to have gotten this job. It is the most important job in the world when talking about environment’, says Solheim to the news channel NTB. His aim is to make the agency, knows as UNEP, more visible in the environmental debate.

In May this year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that Solheim was nominated for the position and this Friday he was formally selected by the general assembly.

Solheim is currently working as head of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in Paris. He will succeed Achim Steiner from Germany, who was head of UNEP for the past ten years.

UNEPs headquarters are in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, in addition to a number of regional and country offices around the world with approximately 1,000 employees.
Its mission is to coordinate UN environmental activities, support developing countries in introducing environmentally friendly policies and encourage sustainable development through sustainable environmental initiatives.

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today