|
UNEP’s and UNDP’s work on poverty and environment aims at promoting environmental sustainability as a way to reduce poverty, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).
Please download handout on UNEP’s support to mainstreaming of environment into development processes,
under the UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative.
Objective: Environmental sustainability for MDGs
Poor people rely disproportionately on natural resources for their basic needs, such as food, water, and shelter, because they lack the financial resources to meet these needs through the market. For example, forests can supply poor people with shelter, fuel, and a source of income. Conversely, when environmental resources are not managed in a sustainable manner, their degradation can seriously undermine the capacity of the poor to meet their daily needs. |
|
Promoting sustainable use of the resources upon which poor people rely will contribute to poverty reduction and achievement of the MDGs, particularly MDG 1 (eradicate extreme poverty and hunger) and MDG7 (ensuring environmental sustainability), but also the other MDGs. This is because sound environmental management helps to secure the ability of poor people to improve their well-being and livelihoods.
Please download further information on how achieving the goal of environmental sustainability (MDG7) will contribute to the realization of other MDGs.
Main activities
UNEP’s and UNDP’s main activities in the field of poverty and environment are:
1. Building partnerships
UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNEP initiated their global partnership, the Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI), in 2005. The UNDP-UNEP PEI is a core partnership that not only reflects the integrated nature of environmental and development issues and benefits of the leading UN agencies on environment and development working together, but also the need for improved UN coordination at the global, regional and country level under the UN reform.
Through the partnership UNDP and UNEP seek to mobilise global, regional and national coalitions to enable countries to more effectively integrate environment into their national poverty reduction strategies and investment programmes. The UNDP-UNEP PEI includes joint programming, resource mobilization, and in some countries, joint projects.
The partnership was formally announced at the occasion of the Environment for the MDGs event during the World Summit in September 2005 by the UNEP Executive Director and the UNDP Administrator.
In order to realize the goals of the PEI, UNEP and UNDP are actively engaging with a number of bilateral donors.
Poverty-Environment Partnership
UNEP and UNDP are also active members of the Poverty-Environment Partnership (PEP), an informal network of development agencies and bilateral donors that aims to address key poverty-environment issues by sharing knowledge and operational experience, identifying ways and means to improve coordination and collaboration, and developing and implementing joint activities.
2. Increasing capacity at the country level
In order to increase capacity of developing countries to integrate environmental sustainability into national development processes, UNEP and UNDP are supporting the implementation of pilot projects in seven African countries: Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The country projects aim at the inclusion of environmental sustainability as a central objective in national development strategies, such as poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), MDG implementation plans or equivalents. This includes securing increased national budget allocations towards the environment and building the long-term capacity of governments to mainstream environment in the design and implementation of development plans.
3. Promoting awareness of poverty-environment linkages
A fundamental challenge for achieving environmental sustainability and the MDGs is to get the right information into the hands of the right people at the right time. UNEP and UNDP aim at developing and promoting understanding and awareness about the existing linkages between poverty and environment through various means:
- By conducting assessments of poverty – environment linkages and providing training on them, for example, integrated ecosystem assessment, based on the methodology of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and economic analyses of the value of natural resources;
- By facilitating South-South cooperation to enable countries to learn from each others’ experiences and share best practices;
- By publishing reports on poverty – environment linkages and organizing workshops and meetings, often in collaboration with other members of the Poverty-Environment Partnership.
|
