The main purpose of the first phase of PEI–Rwanda (November 2005-May 2007) was to ensure integration of environment into Rwanda’s new PRSP, the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS). The second and current phase (August 2007-December 2010) is articulated around Rwanda’s medium term needs, namely building capacity for sound environmental management at the local, district, and national level, in collaboration with other ongoing initiatives to enable the implementation of the EDPRS and its environmental commitments.

Read more
http://www.unpei.org

In Lao PDR, the focus of PEI is on strengthening capacities of targeted central and provincial authorities to integrate poverty-environment concerns and opportunities into development planning processes.

Read more
http://www.unpei.org

PEI provides technical support to the UNDP funded capacity building programme for the Department for Environment and Conservation (DEC).   This capacity building programme of approximately $0.5 million per year has been ongoing for three years with TRAC funds.

Read more
http://www.unpei.org

The overall objective of the first phase of the programme (September 2005-March 2008) was to strengthen environmental policy and management capacity at the national and local levels as a contribution to poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

Read more
http://www.unpei.org

The focus of PEI in Viet Nam is on harmonizing poverty reduction and environmental goals in policy and planning for sustainable development. It aims at strengthening government capacities to integrate environment and poverty reduction goals into policy frameworks for sustainable development.

Read more
http://www.unpei.org

The PEI delivers financial and technical support for sustained capacity building to governments and other actors who take on the challenge of mainstreaming poverty-environment linkages into national development processes. For example, the PEI assists planning agencies to consider poverty-environment linkages, including climate change, in formulating economic and development policies, and helps environment agencies to engage with these policy processes more effectively.  The PEI also supports civil society to engage in planning processes, making sure the voice of the poor is heard.

Read more
http://www.unpei.org

Speech:

The UN Secretary-General has recently expressed the view that many ills that confront this earth, such as wars, diseases, famines and environmental insecurity, have their root causes in poverty.

The consequences of not dealing with the glaring inequality between rich and poor were also spelled out last year in an article for the UNEP magazine Our Planet by the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Sustainable development, he said, is “a security imperative”. Poverty, environmental degradation and the despair that they breed are “destroyers of people, of societies, of nations.” They provide the ingredients for the destabilization of countries, even entire regions.

Read more
http://www.unep.org

The study draws on the recent literature on development and the environment to help identify two main sets of issues. First, there are new opportunities for civil society to work towards better environmental outcomes as a result of the focus on improving aid effectiveness. Second, there remain challenges for civil society to secure greater attention on the environment within the new development agenda. By improving understanding of these issues this study aims to contribute to the debate.

Download the document
http://www.odi.org.uk/

Presentation delivered by Sanath Ranawana at the 14th Poverty Environment Partnership meeting in Geneva, April 2009.

South America's recent history is a paradox of growth and decay. Governments throughout the region have begun the evolution from dictatorship to democracy. Most countries have launched successful efforts to stabilize currencies and attract investment, and incomes have risen. Infant mortality and deaths in children under age 5 have declined by about 50% over the last 15 years; life expectancy has risen by an average of 8 years. Yet national prosperity has not conquered poverty, which has, instead, increased. Continual rural-to-urban migration, political and economic restructuring, and unplanned, chaotic urban growth have seriously destabilized South America's environment, with direct consequences to human health.

The state of environmental health in South America is forcing leaders, aid organizations, and communities to transform their view of human health and its relationship to the environment and national development.

Read more
http://www.ehponline.org