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Kenya loses bid to host climate change hub in Nairobi

An aeriel view of Nairobi City. (Photo: Natalia Pushchina)

By Mwangi Maina | Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Earlier, the United Nations agencies had recommended Nairobi as the optimal location from a shortlist of other cities such as Addis Ababa, Bonn, and Geneva.

Nairobi has faced a setback after it missed the opportunity to host a climate change hub after the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage Advisory Board relocated the location to Geneva.

Earlier, the United Nations agencies had recommended Nairobi as the optimal location from a shortlist of other cities such as Addis Ababa, Bonn, and Geneva.

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The agencies had proposed Nairobi, the "environment capital of the world" and the headquarters of the United Nations in Africa.

It was not clear why Geneva, the world's third-most expensive city which was ranked low in the analysis, was preferred.

Governments agreed at Cop25 in 2019 to set up the Santiago Network and tasked it with "averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change" by collecting and sharing expert advice.

The decision to change the location has raised concerns among African climate stakeholders who met in Lilongwe, Malawi, during the third African Regional Conference on Loss and Damage held last week.

The stakeholders were meeting to develop strategies for accelerating access to loss and damage funds.

The goal of the Santiago Network is to address the critical capacity gaps in developing countries to avert, minimise and address loss and damage.

The first meeting of the Advisory Board of the Santiago network was organised by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), who were selected at COP28 last year to jointly serve as the host consortium of the Santiago network secretariat.

The blow comes weeks after Nairobi lost its bid to host a global vaccine institute to Rwanda.

However, the Swiss government during last December's COP28 summit said that it would donate 1 million Swiss francs ($1.1m) to cover office costs and provide up to 10,000 francs ($11,000) per person for office materials and infrastructure.

"We are aggrieved that the hosting right for a platform that embodies the struggles of the communities at the frontline of the climate crisis, and whose location should symbolize the very palpable rationale of tackling Loss and Damage has once again been unjustly snatched from a third country through a clandestinely nefarious process of manipulation, carrot-dangling, and intimidation," the African Climate negotiators leaders said during the conference.

The conference was hosted by the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, the Civil Society Network on Climate Change, and the government of Malawi, in partnership with other civil society groups.

Following the discontentment, the leaders called for the declaration of the Advisory Board Decision in Geneva as null and void while calling upon appointing authorities, especially those from Africa and other developing countries, to investigate the possibility of collusion and manipulation by industrialised countries.