Not a drop to drink

My contact at UNEP wanted to meet me at the very plush Nairobi Safari Club rather than at UNEP’s offices on the other side of town. While waiting for her, I met a Somalian MP. Somalia is in the news for all the wrong reasons these days, what with the pirates and the never-ending war. I asked him to tell me some good things about Somalia, but all he could come up with was the fact that Somalia gained independence first in the region.

Damaris from UNEP is a well-educated, urbane Kenyan, very different from the NGO workers I have met during the shoot. I wasn’t sure before meeting here if it was worth interviewing her. My shoot has already included far too many interviews and not enough cutaways or general views. I thought I would get to clarify how the United Nations can actually help with the water situation before launching into another interview.

One thing I wanted to get clear was how deforestation has such a negative impact on rainfall. It was one of those things that I’d agreed with when reading up about Kenya’s water problems without knowing why cutting down forests means less rain. Damaris put me onto the water cycle - something I thought left behind in GCSE Geography.

Damaris summarised the UN’s role as mainly awareness-raising, acting as watchdogs of countries and brokers for aid. NGOs follow the UN agenda. The UN advises governments. The governments hire NGOs to do development work. It seems like a really circular way of doing things.

It all sounded a bit dispiriting. We expect the UN to solve everyone’s problems. In the end, I decided that asking Damaris to be interviewed wouldn’t add to my piece because of the number of interviews I already have and the fact that I want to emphasise the impact on ordinary people. And also Damaris was on leave at that point, meaning I would have to negotiate with someone else from UNEP.