Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen

On behalf of the UNDP Suriname Country Office, I welcome you to this important event this morning. The UNDP is honored to be partnering with the Cabinet of the President to ensure that actors, partners, and stakeholders are adequately consulted, and informed about the existing structures and future plans for environment management in this, the most forested country on earth. We applaud the Cabinet of the President for providing this opportunity to all who are concerned with and interested in matters of environment management in Suriname to be a part of today's knowledge sharing event.

For those of you who may not know, over 95% of the resources of the UNDP in Suriname, is allocated to environment programming. Between 2013 and 2018, the UNDP has mobilized in excess of USD15 Million for projects on forestry, climate change, biodiversity, ending the use of mercury in small scale gold mining, and addressing the main drivers of deforestation. In this period, we have expended in excess of USD6 million on environment programming. Given this significant investment, we are keen to gain an understanding of the structures that we will have to collaborate with henceforth, to ensure efficient management of the resources, and achievement of results. It is my hope that any redesign will result in increased efficiencies, improved accountability, enhanced coordination, and focused delivery of services.

I wish to congratulate the government of Suriname on its recent announcements and policy measures to protect the environment. Placing environment management within the Cabinet of the President is perhaps the greatest signal of the level of importance placed on the environment. I applaud the government of Suriname on this decision which hopefully, will give environment the highest possible level of attention within the government's structure of policy formulation and service delivery. By ensuring an environment pillar in the 2017 - 2021 National Development Plan, your government has signaled a very sound intention to integrate sustainable environment management into the national development discourse. As one of your trusted development partners, the UNDP offers its expertise, its resources, and its global networks, to secure the best possible interventions that will ensure that the environment continues to serve as the fulcrum for development in this naturally blessed part of the Amazon. Having announced government's commitment to maintain forest coverage at 93%, your government has signaled to the world, that Suriname will continue to play its role as a low eimiting, high greenhouse gas storage country. Public-private partnerships at national, regional and international levels will be necessary to achieve this noble intention, and all of you gathered here this morning will have a role to play, if Suriname is to make good on this commitment.

UNDP joins you in placing the environment at the centre of your development efforts. We look forward to the discussions, and eventual agreement on the structure for environment management for Suriname. We understand, that through partnerships, Suriname will continue to achieve the development demands of its population while protecting and preserving its patrimony so that future generations will be able to meet their needs from the environment you shall bequeath to them. To quote the ancient American Indian proverb, "we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children". Your effort today will ensure that you will return to Suriname's children an environment worthy of the value that generations have preserved, whilst at the same time achieving growth, development and a high standard of living for all citizens. I look forward to the deliberations to follow this opening ceremony, and I invite you to offer your ideas for a better Suriname.

I thank you.