//Welcome to UNON | | The United Nations Office at Nairobi //

Since the early 1990s, the UN’s African headquarters in Nairobi has seen sustained growth, both as the global headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Programme for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat ), and as a rapidly expanding regional development hub. Today, Nairobi’s UN Gigiri Complex stands as a potent symbol of the United Nations’ commitment to equitable social and economic development, and to breaking the shackles of poverty on the world’s poorest continent.

Like any organization, the UN’s diverse functions in Nairobi can only be fulfilled with the support of an efficient and proactive administrative hub. That hub is the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), which since 1996 has been providing the offices of UNEP, UN-Habitat and other key agencies with vital administrative and technical support services – ensuring a smoother enabling environment for their programmes and projects, providing the most efficient use of their personnel and resources, and handling much of the time-consuming logistical details of their day-to-day activities. As well as assisting UN staff in their work, UNON provides them with a host of life-enhancing services, from personal security to professional training, domestic relocations to contractual privileges, travel arrangements to family medical support.

In Nairobi itself, UNON acts as the key administrative centre of the headquarters of UNEP and UN-Habitat, providing them with comprehensive budget and financial management support, informed human resources and procurement services, and vital safety and security coordination. It also offers a broad menu of essential ‘common services’ to other UN agencies in Kenya, provides sophisticated international conference and information facilities, and maintains a world-class business environment at Gigiri, complete with a host of competitive commercial, cultural and sporting facilities.

UNON is headed by a Director-General at Under-Secretary-General level, who is the senior-most United Nations official in Nairobi and reports directly to the UN Secretary-General on all political, procedural and security-related matters. As the Secretary-General’s official representative, the Director-General serves as a direct link between the UN, the Kenya Government and the extensive diplomatic community in Nairobi, and as the host of a wide variety of diplomatic gatherings and peacebuilding initiatives that take place in the capital.

After 40 years in Kenya, the United Nations is not only a fundamental nucleus for UN operations in the country, but a vital player in the regional economy, with a scope that extends far beyond its 75 regional and country offices. A study in 2000 estimated that the UN contributes over US$350 million annually to the Kenyan economy – making it the country’s single largest source of foreign exchange. This figure is continuing to grow, as the UN commits greater resources and personnel to emerging development arenas in Sudan, Somalia and the greater East African region.

The presence of a global UN headquarters has also contributed immeasurably to Kenya’s social development, not only in direct programme assistance but in local and subsidiary employment, procurement, transportation, and a multitude of benefits from its busy schedule of international conferences and events. The UN currently employs nearly 800 international staff and 2,000 national staff who are all provided with competitive remuneration packages, with a large proportion of those salaries contributing to the local economy. As well as hundreds of NGOs and diplomatic missions that depend upon its presence, the UN provides over $20 million worth of business to the local food, pharmaceutical and transport industries, as well as major contracts to private consultancy and security services.

But the UN’s influence is much more than simply a financial one. Over the past four decades, ideas developed and promoted by the UN have helped to shape political discourse and social development in Kenya.

The UN’s International Labour Office has made a long and lasting impact in the area of labour policies, particularly in legitimising informal enterprise as an economic force in development planning. Likewise, the agricultural sector, which employs nearly 80% of all Kenyans, has benefited from a variety of UN proposals, such as dry lands farming and farmer field schools, as have influential UN projects on water, electrification, refugees, drought relief, women’s empowerment and HIV/AIDS. The UN has also invested large amounts in areas such as wildlife conservation, forest restoration and ecotourism – providing unquantifiable economic benefits for local residents. And it has supported thousands of community-based projects, with an impact stretching hundreds of miles – and touching hundreds of thousands of lives.