SPEECH BY HON. KIVUTHA KIBWANA, MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA & PRESIDENT, UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE (UNFCCC) DURING DISCUSSION ON NAIROBI FRAMEWORK, HELD IN BONN, GERMANY ON 14TH MAY 2007

 

Dear colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here for this special event to discuss one of the most significant highlights of the Nairobi Climate Change Conference last December the
Nairobi Framework. In my capacity as the president of COP 12 and CMP 2, I have the

honour of chairing this important event and I am delighted to see that so may of you have
joined us, and that we have such a distinguished panel of speakers with us here today.

You will recall that, at our Conference in Nairobi last December, the former Secretary General of the United Nations His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan announced the launching of  the Nairobi Framework with the specific target of helping developing countries, especially those in sub-Sahara Africa, to improve their level of participation in the clean development mechanism.

The Nairobi Framework was initiated in response to an inequitable distribution of CDM projects that was seeing most of sub-Saharan Africa being bypassed by carbon market opportunities. It is still unfortunate that CDM projects in sub-Saharan Africa are still, despite an increase in the last year, limited to a few countries and are few in number compared to other regions. While I am pleased that there has been an increase in the number of projects in the pipeline, there are still only a few projects registered to date. I know that we can do better!

Needless to say, this trend is a reason for great concern by the African countries, developing countries in general and the world community. As this initiative started in my country, as the proxy for the rest of the sub-continent, I have high hopes and expectations for the Nairobi Framework. Hopes that it will soon lead to more attention being given to African countries in terms of an increased inflow of CDM-related investments and technology and expectations that the donor Parties of the CDM community will support these endeavours.

I cannot reiterate enough how important it is for sub-Saharan African countries to have greater access to the opportunities offered by the CDM in order to support their development objectives in a sustainable manner. These countries are in dire need of capacity building to assist them to take advantage of the opportunities and potential that the CDM offers. In order for that capacity building to take place and for projects to gain a foothold, financial resources are essential; resources that will support the identification, development and submission of the CDM projects as well as resources that will 'enable' the underlying projects themselves. From another perspective, at least in Africa and many LOC’s in this region, there are significant opportunities for CDM projects that could be developed.

But how best to bridge the current gaps? I believe that increased co-operation between the various CDM players and development agencies will certainly be a good way forward. In that way resources could be optimized and assistance be delivered in a more co-ordinated manner. Also more stakeholders need to be mobilized to assist in CDM-disadvantaged countries. Here, the financial and investment community, both from within and from outside the host countries, has a key role to play in terms of mobilizing funds in such a manner that they assist, rather than discourage projects that, for example, deliver energy services providing for basic human needs, as well as generate carbon credits.

AS you may have noticed, I have mentioned four of the Nairobi Framework objectives as
they are key issues that we need to actively address, so as to  guarantee that the CDM brings the development dividend to our countries. I want to stress the key issues we are here to discuss:

The need to build or enhance the capacity of DNA’s to become fully operational, as well as to build capacity in host countries to develop CDM projects;
The need to mobilize the financial resources that are required for capacity building, as well as;
The need to support the processes related to the CDM project component and to finance the underlying projects.

Having more partners and increased coordination among them will help us to achieve these objectives. The objectives have been well chosen and will, if addressed in a concerted manner, bring results.

This special Mobilization Event will allow us all to discuss our respective views on what the Framework is and is not, as well as to take stock of activities planned or already underway to address our concerns related to the concept of '(in)-equitable distribution' of
CDM projects and I would like to sincerely thank the Secretariat for organizing this event.

The agencies that are currently partner to the Nairobi Framework are already and will continue to provide assistance to sub-Saharan African countries to enable them to identify, develop, submit and process CDM projects and I am very pleased to welcome representatives of those agencies on the podium with me today to report on the progress they have made in developing activities:

• Mr. Yvo de Boer, Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• Mr. Yannick Glemarec, United Nations Development programme (UNDP)
• Mr. John Christiansen, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
• Mr. Konrad Von Ritter, World Bank Group

I am also pleased to have here on the podium with us Mr. William Kojo-Aygeman Bonsu from Ghana who is currently Co-Chair of the DNA Forum which will provide you with the DNAs perspectives on this issue.

After hearing their presentations, I invite Parties and other SB’s participants to respond to these reports and present their views on the Framework, its implementation process and thereby provide feedback to the agencies.

Further, I look forward to hearing from donors on their plans to support the Framework as, in the words of Kofi Annan during his high-level speech in Nairobi, we also hope to “…….encourage donor countries to help make these efforts a success".