Seventh African Ministerial Conference on the Environment starts on Monday in Kenya

The Seventh Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), will be held at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya from 17 to 21 September 2018. It will consist of a meeting of the expert group to be held from 17 to 18 September 2018 and a ministerial segment to be held on 19 September 2018.
The special session is jointly organized with the NEPAD Agency and will be held back to back with the first meeting of the Africa Environment Partnership Platform which will take place on 20 and 21 September 2018.
The special session will be preceded by a major groups and stakeholders’ forum (civil society) meeting on 15-16 September 2018. A number of side events will be held during the session.
The special session will consider key issues to be discussed at the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) and Africa’s common approach for engagement in the Assembly, scheduled to take place in March 2019. It will focus on how environmental challenges can be addressed through innovative solutions and interventions and by promoting sustainable consumption and production.
The special session will provide an opportunity for the continent to prepare for the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD-COP14) scheduled for 17 to 29 November in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, as well as the 24th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC-COP24) to be held in Katowice, Poland later in the year.
The Conference will consist of an expert group segment on 17 and 18 September 2018 while the Ministerial segment will be held on 19 September 2018.
Under the theme: “Turning environmental policies into action through innovative solutions”, the Conference will focus on strategies, plans and investments required to implement the concept of innovative environmental solutions. The outcomes of the conference will shape African countries’ position and their inputs into the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) that will take place next year and has as theme: “Innovative solutions for environmental challenges and sustainable consumption and production”.
AMCEN at its 14th session held in 2012 adopted a decision to establish an African Environment Partnership Platform (AEPP) to coordinate, mobilize resources, foster knowledge and align support for the implementation of the Environment Action Plan of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The Platform was officially launched during the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco in 2016. The goal of the partnership platform spearheaded by the NEPAD Agency is to promote sustainable environmental management in Africa through enhanced partnership, coordination and harmonization of activities as well as pooling of resources at various levels. The focus during this meeting will be to review environmental management in Africa under the theme “50 years of Environmental Governance and Sustainability in Africa”.
The session will adopt a declaration, decisions and key messages reflecting the discussions under the various agenda items.