The Ninth Global Training Program on Environmental Law and Policy was organized and conducted at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Conference room 3, Nairobi, Kenya, from 3-14 November 2009.

The main achievements of this program to the 75 participants who attended from various countries were:-

Participants were informed about the legal and institutional developments in the field of environmental law at the international and national levels.

The programme has developed their skills for implementation of environmental law and multilateral environmental agreements;

The negotiation and diplomacy skills of participants were also enhanced;

A greater interest in and commitment to using environmental law as an instrument for translating sustainable development policies into action was also promoted; and

To enable participants to share experiences and information and to take initiative on a more informed basis in their home countries on the development and implementation of environmental law.

The agenda of this training was designed to cover basic international and national environmental law, policy and institutional issues. Topical issues and current developments from Conference of the Party processes were also included in the training. The training was conducted through power point presentations, videos, discussions, simulation exercises and mock negotiation sessions to achieve this objective. The training also gave an opportunity to a good number of participants to make presentations on their country experiences in the development and implementation of national environmental laws and institutions as well as on policy and action taken to implement various Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).

Participants from the following countries benefited from this year’s programme

Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Bulgaria, Croatia Estonia, Romania, Slovak Republic, Turkey, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Bhutan China, Indonesia, Fiji, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico Panama, Peru, Suriname, Bahrain, Barbados, Cuba, Cyprus, Georgia, Jordan, Micronesia, Qatar, St. Lucia, Samoa, Serbia, Yemen.