Why?
70% of the world’s poor men and women draw upon natural resources for most of their livelihoods. Farmlands, grasslands, forests, freshwaters and oceans are the sources of more than half of the income of poor households worldwide. Yet those natural resources – the basis of the - GDP of the poor” – are rapidly being degraded across the globe.
The 2030 Agenda reflects the major poverty-environment challenges facing the world’s population: depleted natural capital, climate vulnerability, gender inequality, rural-urban migration and growing resource demands – all of those disproportionately harm the livelihoods and well-being of the poor.
Poverty-Environment Action for Sustainable Development Goals promotes an integrated approach that brings poverty, environment and climate objectives into the heart of national and subnational plans, policies, budgets and public and private finance to strengthen the sustainable management of natural resources and to alleviate poverty.
How?
In 2018, United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched Poverty-Environment Action for Sustainable Development Goals. It builds on more than a decade of experience of its predecessor, the Poverty-Environment Initiative.
We are extending the previous Initiative’s strategy along three complementary lines:
- Aligning public and private finance and investments with poverty, environment and climate actions to accelerate implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals;
- Deepening countries’ efforts to integrate environmental sustainability and climate objectives for poverty eradication into development planning, budgeting and monitoring systems;
- Broadening South-South cooperation, partnerships and knowledge-sharing to use integrated tools for sustainable development.
Where?
Poverty-Environment Action directly works with the Ministries of Finance, Planning, Environment, Natural Resources as well as sectoral line Ministries in Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Nepal to prevent environmental degradation that especially harms the poor and marginalized. Technical assistance will be available to other interested countries.
Myanmar
The Government of Myanmar has committed to a series of policy reforms on environmental governance, climate change and disaster risk reduction to ensure that economic growth in Myanmar is more inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
Recognizing that Myanmar’s environmental assets present unique opportunities for green economic development, which can directly support women’s economic empowerment and community resilience, Poverty-Environment Action aims to promote integrated policies and financing in support of SDG implementation. More specifically, its objectives are:
- Resilience and sustainability policy frameworks are strengthened and implemented;
Increased promotion of small and large-scale green investments;
Improved organizational arrangements and capacity of targeted government offices with environment, climate change and disaster risk reduction responsibilities;
Local environment, climate change and disaster risk issues are addressed through subnational implementation of innovative policies and action plans.Resilience and sustainability policy frameworks are strengthened and implemented; - Increased promotion of small and large-scale green investments;
- Improved organizational arrangements and capacity of targeted government offices with environment, climate change and disaster risk reduction responsibilities;
- Local environment, climate change and disaster risk issues are addressed through subnational implementation of innovative policies and action plans.
Lao PDR
Lao PDR is well endowed with natural resources such as mineral, forest, land and fresh water. The Government of Lao PDR is striving to position investments in the natural resource sectors that can directly and indirectly support poverty reduction.
To support this, Poverty-Environment Action aims to strengthen coordination of government’s regulatory capacity to coordinate and promote higher quality investment, improvement in the ease-of-doing business, transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of investment management for achieving the SDGs in Lao PDR. This will be done through:
- Promoting and monitoring quality and responsible investment planning for sustainable development;
- Strengthening assessments, regulations, approvals and inspections to promote quality and responsible investment.
Who?
Partnerships are an essential part of Poverty-Environment Action and, building on its core UN Environment-UNDP collaboration, the programme will reach out to various actors involved in sustainable development, poverty eradication and environmental sustainability.
UN Environment-UNDP Poverty-Environment Action (2018-2022) is made possible through the support of the European Union and the Governments of Austria, Norway and Sweden. We are looking forward to expanding our partnerships.
