Working cohesively towards a common goal
Beijing, 16-18 July 2016- UN Environment China Office and UNEP-IEMP team held its annual joint retreat in July aiming to enhance efficiency and deliver better impact collectively. The retreat began by a video speech of the new UN Environment Executive Director Mr Erik Solheim. Both offices reviewed achievements and progress made, emerging opportunities and discussed the areas for both teams to work together in achieving UN Environment goals with its comparative advantages.
Both offices jointly identified priority areas to enhance UN Environment’s visibility and impact in China and the global South. These areas include: i) accessing GEF 7 resources, especially through regional projects; ii) support China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative; iii) joint outreach in both English and Chinese to enhance UN Environment’s visibility in China and globally; iv) knowledge sharing to communicate China and global South experiences.
As 2016 marks IEMP entering its fully operational phase and transitioning to a ‘programme-based’ Centre, the retreat also focused on discussing the implementation of the newly approved Flagship Programme CEL under the new delivery mechanism with four restructured offices. While reviewing key decisions and recommendations from the 4th Steering Committee (SC) and 2nd Science Advisory Group (SAG), the retreat allowed the team to reflect on follow-up actions of the strategic directions provided. Several group discussions were organized to allow each member to better position their roles in the transition phase.
