Environment and Energy

Approach to Sustainable Development Strategies

Support for national and local sustainable development strategies and related policy measures have been a cornerstone of UNDP country programmes since the Rio Conference in 1992. Achieving sustainable development and addressing a country’s various needs and development challenges typically require deep and sound structural changes, solid democratic reforms, new ways of environmental governance in market-based economies, and assertive measures towards ensuring consensus around a common goal. To assist countries in achieving these priorities, UNDP focuses on three core, interrelated areas of support:

Integrating sustainable management of environment and natural resources into Poverty Reduction Strategies, key national development frameworks, and sector strategies.

UNDP assists in the integration of environmental priorities into national strategies and policy processes for poverty eradication and sustainable development through improved capacity of national/sectoral authorities to plan and implement integrated approaches to environmental management and sustainable energy development. The UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) works towards this goal, helping countries strengthen their own capacities to fight poverty through sound and equitable environmental management by building partnerships and supporting learning and knowledge sharing at local, national and global levels. UNDP’s Poverty-Environment Nexus Practice Note supports country offices in their policy, advocacy, and programming work by identifying and exploring key poverty-environment issues and priority themes and UNDP’s corporate approach.

Adopting and implementing National Strategies for Sustainable Development for integrating responses to economic, social, and environmental issues.

UNDP supports local, national, and global efforts towards developing and implementing national sustainable development strategies (NSDSs). An NSDS is a country-based and country-owned system that provides a coordinated set of participatory and continually improving sector or component processes aimed at meeting sustainable development challenges, using existing processes as entry points. A nationally-driven strategy for sustainable development provides an opportunity for target setting, reconciliation of global commitments and local actions, and bringing coherence, balance and sustainability to the national policy and development agenda. It is a process of refining development outcomes with respect to managing natural resources and functions to maximise long-term positive development, and to organise programme outputs, as well as development assistance inputs. UNDP’s Frameworks and Strategies for Sustainable Development Practice Note highlights main challenges of sustainable development, goals and objectives of an NSDS to meet them, key principles for effective implementation of an NSDS, and experiences of national and strategic planning approaches.

Setting targets and demonstrating progress towards environmental sustainability (Millennium Development Goal 7).

UNDP provides knowledge-based support to countries in monitoring and reporting on progress towards targets of environmental sustainability (MDG7).  A review of more than 150 MDG country reports revealed many complex challenges of reporting on and monitoring for sustainable development. UNDP’s Monitoring Country Progress Towards MDG 7: Ensuring Environmental Sustainability Practice Note addresses these challenges and offers guidelines for sustainable development assessment, suggestions on approaches and techniques to monitoring and reporting on MDG7 progress, environmental and sustainable development indicator resources, and examples of country practices.