The identification and integration of poverty-environment linked indicators is part of the PEI mainstreaming approach of supporting and influencing national planning processes and key strategies and plans. The Poverty-Environment Initiative assists countries in identifying and developing environment, poverty-environment and environment-sector indicators, particularly during the implementation phase of a Poverty-Environment programme. Moreover, the Initiative supports countries in improving capacity for data collection and management and collaborates closely with national statistics office and other stakeholders to strengthen existing monitoring systems.

The overall objective of integrating poverty-environment issues in the monitoring system is to increase the chances that the poverty-environment elements of policy documents and their related strategies and measures are both monitored and implemented effectively.

By including poverty-environment indicators in national monitoring and data gathering systems it helps enabling national planning institutions and sectors to include poverty-environment linkages in key policies and strategies. A national monitoring system helps track progress made against the goals of key policy documents and the implementation of strategies and policy measures; it also helps in identifying where and what kinds of corrective actions may be needed. The system can cover sectors such as agriculture or health, or cross-cutting issues such as poverty. Identifying indicators and corresponding data collected over time will enable regular assessments of trends in environment status and poverty levels (and links between the two).

Monitoring poverty-environment issues allows policymakers and implementers to demonstrate the impact of policy measures put in place, share lessons learned, make adjustments in policies and guide budget and resource allocation. Monitoring also contributes to a better articulation of policies and measures for poverty-environment issues, and identifies emerging issues to be addressed in future policy documents and related implementation measures.

Key Documents

• Study on Poverty and Environment Indicators, Kenya, 2011
• Indicateurs de Suivi des Politiques et des Ressources Environnementales, Mauritania, 2010
• Indicateurs combinés pauvreté et environnement en Mauritanie, Republique Islamique de Mauritanie/IPE, 2010
• Malawi’s Agriculture Sector Wide Approach and Results Framework Malawi, 2009 

• Identification des indicateurs de l’environnement et de pauvrete a integrer dans le cadre strategique pour la croissance et la reduction de la pauvrete, les strategies sectorielles et les plans de developpement local, Mali, 2009
• Environmental Module in Tanzania Socio Economic Database, Tanzania, 2009
• Poverty-Environment Indicators and Strategy for Monitoring them within the framework of the EDPRS, Rwanda, 2007
• Poverty and Environment Mapping – Poverty- Environment Indicators and Policy Options for Possible Intervention under the PRSP, Rwanda, 2005
• The Development of Indicators of Poverty-Environment Linkages, Tanzania, 2005

Stories

• Improved monitoring of poverty-environment linkages as part of Tanzania’s key national planning strategy