New PEI report looks at the economic arguments for mainstreaming poverty-environment linkages
A major element of the PEI country work is to assist in “making the case” for integrating environmental management by using the argument that better environmental management contributes to poverty reduction, pro-poor growth and government finances. This new primer provides guidance on presenting evidence about the economic, development and poverty reduction benefits of the environment to public sector decision-makers, so as to justify and promote “environmental investment”. In the face of pressing needs for economic growth and poverty reduction, and given the scarcity of public funds,the environment tends to remain a low priority in public investment and policy formulation. With few exceptions, environmental managers face a continuing problem in “selling” their sector to macroeconomic and sectoral decision-makers. This primer is designed to help PEI country teams and government counterparts engaged in the environmental mainstreaming challenge to succeed in “making such a case,make sure they have the evidence to back this up, and identify a series of entry points to engage the attention of economic and development decision-makers and to enter into meaningful dialogue with them.

The primer

• provides guidance on how to frame the economic argument for environmental mainstreaming
• presents examples of the ways in which the environment contributes to pro-poor growth and gives guidance about the kinds of data that can be presented as evidence
• summarises the data requirements for making the economic case for environmental investment
• provides advice on accessing information about the economy and environment
• outlines strategies for packaging and communicating evidence in a form that is credible and convincing

This primer draws upon cooperation with and input from the OECD DAC/EPOC Task Team on Governance and Capacity Development for Natural Resources and Environmental Management and is complementary to their report “Making the economic case — a review of approaches for improving the economic analysis of environment and natural resources in national development planning”: [High resolution] [Low resolution]

UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative hosted the inception meeting for the launching of the UNDP-UNEP – PEI regional programme for Europe and and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 9 - 10 December 2008
The joint UNDP-UNEP PEI Programme for Europe and CIS hosted an inception workshop with representatives from countries in the region that have expressed interest in the PEI. The workshop took place 9 -10 December 2008 in Bratislava, Slovakia.

The workshop’s overall objective was a comprehensive discussion of poverty-environment linkages and opportunities for mainstreaming and explored in detail the PEI concept, methodology and implementation modalities and its application potential in the Europe and CIS region.

The workshop featured panel discussions examining national experiences with regard to country-specific environment-poverty linkages from representatives from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, Kosovo and Moldova. The various contributions reflected in particular country-specific experiences looking at the integration of environmental concerns in non-environmental sectors and budgeting frameworks. In addition, with the objective to support and nourish cross-regional learning and knowledge-sharing, David Smith of the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative presented lessons learnt from the regional PEI Africa programme and discussed relevant experiences for the Europe and CIS region. Workshop participants discussed the potential for addressing poverty-environment linkages and possible entry points for mainstreaming at local, regional and national levels and the application of mainstreaming guidelines in participating countries and developed practical recommendations for next steps and overall follow-up. [Workshop report, english], [Workshop report, russian]

Workshop presentations are available here...

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