UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative jointly supports the implementation of full country level mainstreaming programmes in 25 countries:  nine countries in Africa, eight countries in Asia and Pacific, three countries in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the aim of increasing the capacity of governments to mainstream environment into national development processes and their implementation.

To support the country programmes four regional teams have been established in Nairobi-Africa, Bangkok-Asia Pacific, Bratislava-Europe CIS and Panama-Latin America. The regional team’s function is to provide strategic direction to the country programs; provide support to governments and UNDP country offices to facilitate PEI implementation; promote poverty-environment partnerships the sharing of knowledge and lessons learnt from the different countries in the programme. The support is provided through the regional structures of UNDP and UNEP and the Poverty-Environment Facility in Nairobi in turn provides support and guidance to the PEI regional teams.

While each regional team has adapted their strategy to the regional context they reflect the global PEI Scale-up outputs aiming to contribute to that:

• Pro-poor environmental outcomes are mainstreamed into development policies, plans and budgets making them more inclusive and pro-poor, gender responsive, and environmentally sustainable
• National and regional institutional capacity and coordination systems are strengthened to implement, monitor and report on pro-poor, gender responsive sustainable development policies and plans
• Pro-poor environmental outcomes are integrated into regional and global institutions and sustainable development debates