Second Annual meeting of the Poverty and Environment Project, Nairobi, 6-8 June 2006.

UNEP’s Poverty and Environment Unit held its Second Annual Meeting in Nairobi.

The main objectives of the meeting were:

1. To assess the status of implementation of the project in the seven beneficiary countries;
2. To analyze the relevant questions related to the Poverty and Environment nexus and key points raised in the country presentations;
3. To review and discuss UNEP and UNDP’s respective roles in the project implementation and study ways to reinforce the collaboration between the two institutions;
4. To introduce and train the countries on the newly developed P&E intranet, a communication and experience sharing tool;
5. To improve the communication between countries and discuss ways to create partnerships among the pilot countries.

This three day workshop offered an opportunity to give the country focal points a platform to discuss issues ranging from challenges in implementation to more effective collaboration between UNEP-UNDP and the country governments.  The discussions from the working groups also allowed the participants to share experiences and lessons learnt, and exchange about ways to enhance country to country cooperation. Country posters had been prepared which outlined the main issues in each country (download posters here).   

South-south co-operation has been and will continue to be a key component of the poverty and environment project. To facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience an intranet has been created, which was launched at the meeting. Other components of south-south co-operation include the participation of country representatives in national workshops in one of the other pilot countries, study visits, regional publications and a regional workshop for sub-Saharan African countries on environment and the MDGs.

 The Capability and Sustainability Centre (CSC) from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, was also represented at the meeting and received many requests for capacity building on Poverty and Environment indicators.  SAfMA (Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) has provided training on integrated ecosystem assessment to many of the pilot countries in the past. Most of the pilot countries are currently undertaking an actual (pilot) assessment in the field.  This workshop has also been an opportunity for these countries to discuss the way forward for the implementation of the integrated ecosystem assessment with the expert from SAfMA.

Workshop Report -  Please press here