For the next phase of the joint UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI: 2013-2017) regional meetings are taking place to reflect on the achievements and lessons learned from programming to date, and to plan the way ahead. The regional workshop for the Asia-Pacific was jointly organized by the Royal Government of Bhutan, the UNDP Bhutan Country Office and the PEI Regional Team for Asia-Pacific on August 9-11 2012 in Paro, Bhutan. 67 participants attended the workshop comprising planning, finance and environment officials from eight countries in the region as well as senior UNDP, UNCDF, UNDP and UNEP officials.
The Rio+20 agenda was discussed under the title of ‘Making an Impact for a Greener, Inclusive Economy’ in the light of transforming national public investment, reforming investment by local government and harnessing private investment for poverty reduction.
Participants confirmed that PEI in the Asia-Pacific has been successful in creating greater understanding of poverty-environment (P-E) issues and has helped to address these linkages within planning for public and private investments. This has led to increased engagement between planning agencies and sectoral ministries, and more harmonized development goals and objectives. Moreover, P-E guidelines have been developed and P-E linkages are taken into account and reflected in major policy decisions and key economic sectors such as climate financing, agriculture, and large scale foreign direct investment projects such as mining.
During the next phase the region would like PEI to continue to work with planning and finance ministries and apply its flexible approach to support their efforts for P-E mainstreaming with focus on climate change and foreign direct investment. The partner countries also encouraged PEI to further focus on the implementation and poverty-related aspects of the programme as well as garner greater technical inputs from Environment Ministries.
Updates from the three further regional PEI workshops (Europe/CIS, Latin America/Caribbean, and Africa) will be communicated in the coming weeks, as will news from the next PEI Donor Steering Group Meeting (October 4th in Geneva).