Biography|Elizabeth Dowdeswell — The Gigiri Compound She Took on 1 January

The election was in New York.

The chair was in Nairobi.

A GRID-Arendal press release dated 3 December 1997, announcing Klaus Topfer as her successor, states that Elizabeth Dowdeswell of Canada had held the UNEP post since 1 January 1993.

UNEP's later leadership page gives the span as 1992 to 1998.

Headquarters sit on United Nations Avenue in Gigiri, next to Karura Forest, at a documented point near 1.2346 south, 36.8164 east.

The United Nations Office at Nairobi, formalised in 1996 during her tenure, is now the UN's official headquarters in Africa and still houses UNEP and UN-Habitat.

She arrived as the first woman to run the programme and as Under-Secretary-General.

UNEP's own later summary of her years is brief: the programme increased its use of technology to understand environmental change.

The Nairobi Declaration on the Role and Mandate of UNEP was adopted by the Governing Council on 7 February 1997, while she was still in the chair.

Topfer, then Germany's environment minister, was elected on 3 December 1997 and took office on 1 February 1998.

The compound a visitor reaches today is larger than the one she entered.

The address on United Nations Avenue is the same.

Photo: Danish Dhamani, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons