Created to act as an anchor institution in the system of Global Environmental Governance (GEG), it has failed to meet those demands.
The UNEP has been hindered by its title as a Programme as opposed to a specialized agency like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) or the World Health Organization (WHO), in addition to a lack of voluntary funding, and a location removed from the centers of political power, in Nairobi, Kenya.
The UNEP was created to perform the tasks of an anchor institution in the system of Global Environmental Governance (GEG).
[4] Maria Ivanova, Director of the Global Environmental Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, writes in a working paper entitled Assessing UNEP as Anchor Institution for the Global Environment: Lessons for the UNEO Debate that "anchor institutions are the primary, though not the only, international organizations in certain global issue areas and typically perform three core functions: 1) overseeing monitoring, assessment, and reporting on the state of the issue in their purview; 2) setting an agenda for action and advancing standards, policies, and guidelines; and 3) developing institutional capacity to address existing and emerging problems."
However, it fails to analyze environmental issues at the state level, and responsibility for monitoring, assessment, and reporting is allocated to all eight divisions of UNEP, creating redundancies.
[6] "Another important function critical to the effectiveness of an anchor institution is agenda setting and management of intergovernmental processes to gain agreement on standards, policies, and guidelines or even just serving as the central forum for deliberation and debate."
"UNEP has not succeeded in becoming the central forum for debate and deliberation in the environmental field, like the WTO for trade or the WHO for health."
[7] The UNEP has struggled to establish its role in the International system and this has led to it also having difficulty in Capacity Development (defined by Ivanova as Education and Training, Financing, Technical Assistance, and Institution and Network Building).
[8] After the 58th meeting of the UN General Assembly, a proposal was made by the member states of the European Union to transform the UNEP into the United Nations Environmental Organization.
[10] As with other Specialized Agencies, the institutional structure of a UNEO would consist of a plenary body, an executive organ, and a secretariat.
[15] There is a consensus among policy-makers that UNEP needs to be strengthened, and "in November 2006, the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance, and the Environment recommended that 'UNEP should be upgraded and have real authority as the environmental policy pillar of the UN system'".