Change to the UNEP leadership

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Inger Andersen, Denmark, as the new Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) .

Inger Andersen, since 2015 Director General of the NGO “International Union for Conservation of Nature” (IUCN), has previously worked for the World Bank, recently as Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa Region, and as Vice President for Sustainable Development and Head of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research Fund Council.

Andersen takes the place of Erik Solheim, Norway, who has held for just two years the role that was of Achim Steiner for the previous 10 years, a Brazilian of German descent, now leading the UNDP, the UN development program.

Sohleim’s turnover became necessary after the scandals related to his excesses in air travel, with an account of about 488,000 dollars for the 529 days of travel on the 668 audited among which, as reported by the Guardian, also a weekend in Paris from the USA.

Excessive use of the aircraft that Sohleim seems to have boasted in the Norwegian media and which is not really an example of sustainability.

But Sohleim’s shortcomings in leadership have also suggested a change of guard at the head of UNEP, considering his approach sometimes considered as dictatorial, as reported by the Guardian, to which some anonymous sources said: “A lot of us were very excited when he came. He’s Norwegian and an ex-environment minister. It was the dream CV that turned into a nightmare”.

Inger Anderson now has the task of making that nightmare forgotten.