Following a period of region-wide consultation that confirmed the need for and strong interest in the service provided by the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative, a joint regional UNDP-UNEP PEI programme for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was formally launched in December 2008 with an inception workshop in Bratislava/Slovakia. The workshop brought together 33 representatives from 7 countries in the region. Government representatives, UNDP-UNEP PEI staff and UNDP Country Office Representatives discussed the objectives and possible entry points for PEI national programmes as well as the challenges of mainstreaming poverty-environment linkages into different policy initiatives and explored participants' interest in developing a PEI country programme in their country.

Based in Geneva/Switzerland and Bratislava/Slovak Republic, the regional PEI team manages the PEI Europe & CIS Programme; provides support to governments and UNDP country offices to facilitate PEI implementation; and promotes the sharing of knowledge and lessons learnt from the different countries in the programme. The regional team conducted several scoping missions in 2009 to explore options for formally preparing and launching initial phases of national PEI programmes. A new PEI country programme has been launched in Tajikistan in May 2010. The official inception workshop in cooperation with the Tajik government will take place early September 2010. The launch of a new PEI programme in Kyrgyzstan is at the final stage of preparation and is currently being delayed due to the unstable political situation in Kyrgyzstan. In addition, the regional team also provided technical support to Armenia to help establishing a working group on poverty and environment under the National Council for Sustainable Development.

	Tajikistan		Kyrgyzstan

Nara Luvsan
Nara is UNEP Senior Programme Officer located in Geneva for the regional PEI for Europe and CIS. She brings to PEI a thorough knowledge of the region with previous postings in Tajikistan, Georgia and Turkey as well as extensive planning, programming, training/facilitation, negotiation and management skills applied to poverty situations. Nara has a master degree in economics from a German University and a master degree in international public administration from Johns Hopkins University/USA.

Henrieta Martonakova
Henrieta Martonakova is a Project Manager at the UNDP Regional Centre for Europe and CIS in Bratislava and supports the regional PEI as environmental mainstreaming expert. Her specific expertise lies in the area of strategic environmental assessments. Henrieta holds master degrees in environmental engineering and environmental management.

Vladimir Mikhalev
Vladimir Mikhalev is a UNDP policy advisor on pro-poor economic policy reforms with the Regional Centre in Bratislava with specific expertise in the design and monitoring of poverty reduction strategies, MDGs and regional development plans. Vladimir has over 20 years' of research and consultancy experience gained in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS and Southeast Asia. He holds a PhD in development economics from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Aitziber Echeverria
Aitziber supports PEI as UNEP Junior Professional Officer, located in Geneva. Before joining the PEI, she worked for the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency both in Central America and the Balkan region, posted in Costa Rica and Bosnia and Herzegovina and as coordinator of the sectoral development programme for the promotion of sustainable development and the conservation of natural resources in the Mediterranean region at the agency's headquaters. She holds an environmental science degree, with a specialization in sustainable development and management of natural resources.

For any questions regarding the roll out of the ECIS PEI programme please contact us at: facility.unpei@unpei.org