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Business Reporter

ZIMBABWE has strengthened its collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a leading environmental authority in the United Nations system, in order to scale up domestic environmental management and protection.

UNEP uses its expertise to strengthen environmental standards and practices while helping implement environmental obligations at the country, regional and global levels.

Today the Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu, met with the acting deputy executive director and corporate services division for UNEP, Ms Sonja Leighton-Kone in Harare to discuss a range of issues over environmental management.

“Zimbabwe’s collaboration with UNEP on environmental management and protection over the last two decades has been strengthening particularly in the prioritized triple environmental crises of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution control,” said the ministry in a post-meeting media update.

Minister Ndlovu engaging with UNEP executive, Ms Sonja Leighton-Kone, in Harare today

“The collaboration of the country with UNEP has created an important platform for compliance with the various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), accessing funding mechanisms and resource mobilization for the implementation of MEAs.”

As a result, the ministry said the country has benefited significantly through technical assistance for institutional capacity building and policy development to guide transformative projects and programs.

In his remarks, Minister Ndhlovu articulated how Zimbabwe has made commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in which the country committed to a conditional 40 percent per capita greenhouse gas emissions reduction across all sectors by 2030.

He also said that the NDC’s mitigation is estimated to cost US$5 billion and the commitment is conditional on the means of implementation namely technology, finance, and related training.

The NDC has both mitigation and adaptation priorities to be achieved by 2030.

In response, Ms Sonja Leighton-Kone appreciated the recognition of support that UNEP is providing to Zimbabwe.

She also stressed that, as UNEP, they should continue to support President Mnangagwa’s mantra of building Zimbabwe ‘brick by brick’ towards a prosperous and empowered upper middle-income society by 2030.

The meeting was also attended by the Secretary for Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Zimbabwe Ambassador Raphael Faranisi, and senior ministry directors, among others.