Within the Asia-Pacific region, the first PEI-supported country programme on poverty-environment mainstreaming was launched in Viet Nam in 2005 with the support from the UNDP PEI programme. A second PEI national programme was launched in Bhutan in 2008, under the joint UNDP-UNEP PEI.
In late 2006, a joint UNDP-UNEP PEI regional team was formed to support the PEI scale-up process in the Asia-Pacific region that brings together staff from the UNEP Regional Office for Asia-Pacific and the UNDP Regional Centres in Bangkok and Colombo. Two regional workshops on Mainstreaming Environment for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Growth were held in March 2007 (Thimphu/Bhutan) and April 2008 (Bangkok/Thailand) which brought together UNDP and UNEP staff from regional and country offices and government officials from a range of countries with an interest in participating in the PEI regional programme. Both workshops served to identify the needs for poverty-environmental mainstreaming within the region and helped defining overall PEI programme objectives and how best to support countries in putting into practice innovative strategies for poverty-environment mainstreaming. A third regional workshop in June 2009 (Bangkok/Thailand) reviewed the state of the art of lessons learnt regarding integrating environment-poverty linkages into national development planning and discussed how to further operationalise the challenges of mainstreaming in the Asia-Pacific region. A recent fourth regional PEI workshop in June 2010 (Vientiane/Lao PDR) focused discussions on opportunities and challenges of public and private investment strategies in the region and policies for pro-poor environment benefits.
As of 2010, the Asia-Pacific regional programme team is supporting five national PEI programmes in Bhutan, Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Nepal and Thailand. In addition, PEI provides substantial technical and policy advisory services to Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea as part of the UNDP environmental mainstreaming programmes in both countries. The PEI programme for Vietnam officially ended in September 2009, however, policy and technical advisory services are continued on demand.
The regional PEI Asia team holds regular thematic regional workshops in cooperation with leading regional professional associations and networks to discuss key poverty-environment topics to assist future work and to improve cross-regional knowledge-sharing.
In December 2007, a workshop on Environmental Economics for Policy Makers was held in Bangkok/Thailand which brought together policy makers from Finance, Planning, Agriculture, Environment, Energy and other sector ministries from countries in Asia. The workshop, jointly organized with the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE), discussed broad linkages between environmental change, poverty, and economic development and explored ways how to raise best awareness among policy-makers.
PEI Asia, in collaboration with the Economy and Environment Programme for South East Asia (EEPSEA) and the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Greater Mekong Subregion Core Environmental Programme, organized a second regional thematic workshop on “Economic Development, Poverty Reduction and Environment and Climate Change" in September 2008 to further enhance the environment economic focus of the Poverty-Environment Initative in Asia. The workshop addressed the effect of environmental change to the health and income of the poor; the impact of climate change to the region and countries’ economy; ways to meet the Millennium Development Goals and increase benefits from natural resource use; and mechanisms to mitigate and adapt to climate change without compromising growth.
In October 2009, the PEI Asia team discussed jointly with UNCDF and selected UN County teams and experts the role of local government in terms of local public expenditure, local government revenues and local government planning/regulatory/management functions with the objective to develop a guidance note for local governments.
The PEI Team for Asia-Pacific includes:
Paul Steele
Paul Steele from the regional UNDP Environment Practice co-manages the regional PEI programme. Paul has a masters in environmental economics from the University of London. Prior to joining UNDP, Paul worked as economic and environmental advisor for the British and Sri Lankan Governments and has worked for many international organizations.
Additional support to the PEI Asia-Pacific regional programme is provided by the following UNDP and UNEP funded staff:
Panida Charotok
Panida Charotok is a UNDP Programme Assistant and provides programme and financial management support for the PEI regional programme.
Seon-Mi Choi
Seon-Mi Choi is a UNEP Junior Programme Officer specialised in environmental mainstreaming. Before joining the UN, Seon-Mi worked for the Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development of the Republic of Korea on sustainable development planning practices.
Nick Beresnev
Nick Beresnev joined the UNDP Regional Centre Bangkok in August 2009 as a Australian Youth Ambassador for Development. He is specialised in environmental economics and has previously worked in Australia as an economic and public policy consultant, specialising in international trade and forestry in Asia-Pacific.
Jonathan Gilman
Jonathan Gilman works as UNEP Regional Coordinator on Delivering as One UN. He is an environmental economist with more than 10 years programme design and implementation experience with the United Nations, including postings in East-Timor, Indonesia and New York.
Manesh Lacoul
Manesh Lacoul is a UNEP Programme Monitoring and Operations Associate supporting PEI planning, budgeting and monitoring activities.
Saranya Rojananuangnit
Saranya Rojananuangnit joined the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative as Team Assistant in February 2009.
For any questions regarding the PEI Asia-Pacific regional programme please contact us at: facility.unpei@unpei.org
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Meetings & Events
Regional workshops
23-24 June 2010, Vientiane/Lao PDR
Regional Lesson Learning Workshop on Improving Public and Private Investment for Pro-Poor Environment and Climate Outcomes
[Agenda] [Report] [Participants list] [Presentations]
13-14 June 2009, Bangkok/Thailand
Poverty-Environment Initiative Asia Pacific Regional Meeting
[Agenda] [Report]
9-11 April 2008, Thimphu/Bhutan
Poverty-Environment Initiative Regional Mainstreaming Workshop
[Report] [Photo]
26-27 March 2007, Bangkok/Thailand
Workshop on Mainstreaming Environment for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Growth in Asia and Pacific
[Report]
Thematic regional workshops
5-6 October 2009, Bangkok/Thailand
Local Government 's role in environment, natural resource management and climate change
[Agenda] [Report] [Concept Note] [Participants] [Presentations]
17 - 19 September 2008, Bangkok, Thailand
Economic Development, Poverty Reduction and Environment and Climate Change: Environmental Economics for Policy Makers
[Agenda] [Report] [Presentations] [Photos]
10-13 December 2007, Bangkok/Thailand
Economic Development, Poverty Reduction, and Environmental Change: Environmental Economics for Policy Makers
[Report]
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Print Version
