Regional Centre in Bangkok

Regional Poverty-Environment Initiative

The UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) is a joint programme to provide financial and technical support to countries to build capacity for mainstreaming poverty-environment linkages into national development planning processes for poverty reduction and pro-poor growth – such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), MDG or growth strategies. It involves establishing the links between environment and poverty and identifying the policies and programmes to bring about better pro-poor environmental management. It is targeted at influencing national plans, budget processes, sector strategies and local level implementation - reflecting the need to integrate the valuable contribution of environmental management to improved livelihoods, increased economic security and income opportunities for the poor which is largely overlooked in government policy making processes and in the wider debate about development priorities.

Country level mainstreaming  programmes

PEI operates in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and CIS and has supported the implementation of country level mainstreaming programmes in nine countries in Africa and two countries in Asia and the Pacific with the aim of increasing the capacity of governments to mainstream environment into national development processes and their implementation.   Although all country programmes are similar in that they all employ the three-phased approach with the aim of developing a sustainable poverty-environment mainstreaming programme, each country programme is tailored to the specific needs and conditions of that country. Therefore the time-frame and the activities carried out under each programme can vary from country to country.

UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Facility

In order to coordinate and suport the scale-up of the PEI, UNDP and UNEP have set up a joint Facility based in Nairobi. This effectively makes the partnership between the two organisations operational. The role of the Facility is to provide strategic direction for the PEI scale-up, to coordinate relations with the donors providing funds, to expand technical support and access to knowledge on poverty-environment mainstreaming to the UNDP-UNEP regional teams and the participating countries and to provide a hub for a range of partnerships.

 

Asia Pacific Regional Poverty-Environment Initiative

The first PEI-supported country programme on poverty-environment mainstreaming in the Asia-Pacific region was launched in Viet Nam in 2005 with the support from the UNDP PEI programme. 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. This PEI Asia‐Pacific (AP) is part of the global PEI coordinated by the UN Poverty Environment Facility (PEF) in Nairobi. It links with wider UN reform and donor harmonization through the multi‐donor Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP). A second PEI national programme was launched in Bhutan in 2008, under the joint UNDP-UNEP PEI.

As of 2009, the regional Asia-Pacific PEI team is providing technical support and funds to PEI national programmes in Bhutan and Lao PDR, and technical support to ongoing programmes in Papua New Guinea and Viet Nam. Governments in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Nepal, Thailand and Timor Leste are currently being assisted in preparing the development of national PEI supported programmes. Scoping missions at the request of government are being planned for Pakistan and Philippines.

PEI Links

• PEI Website
• PEI Asia Pacific Profile
• PEI Asia Pacific Brochure
• Asia Pacific Poverty Environment Community of Practice on UNDP Solution Networks of Asia Pacific (SNAP)
• PE Network
• PEI Asia Pacific Briefing Note