Environment and Energy

Environmental Mainstreaming

Environmental mainstreaming refers to the integration of environmental considerations into core institutional thinking and decision-making. UNDP’s environmental mainstreaming approach involves integrating sustainability objectives into poverty reduction practices, building internal and external capacities, promoting regional environmental strategies, enhancing environmental soundness and sustainability of UNDP policies, programmes and operational processes, and improving the quality of environment programmes in achieving broader socioeconomic and human development goals.

The main challenge to environmental mainstreaming is finding a strategic nexus and compatibility between development priorities and environmental management objectives where tradeoffs can be addressed pragmatically. Environmental mainstreaming is about capitalising on potential opportunities that benefit both environmental resources and functions and development priorities. Effective environmental mainstreaming involves an integration process to pursue environmental policy interests in coordination with other development policies and programmes. A strategic approach to environmental mainstreaming, such as strategic environmental assessment (SEA), of policies and programmes influences the earliest stages of planning and decision-making processes and helps to bring rationality to decision-making and to build a traceable chain of evaluation and decision-making.

The UNDP Environmental Mainstreaming Strategy outlines the history and background of environmental mainstreaming initiatives and activities in UNDP as well as opportunities and lessons learned from environmental mainstreaming in policy, programming, and operational processes.

Reinforcing Poverty-Environment Linkages

Important to the environmental mainstreaming agenda is realising the link between poverty and environment, and integrating this understanding into development policy and strategy frameworks. Integrating environmental considerations into economic and development planning, such as national development plans and budgets, PRSPs, sector plans and budgets, will serve as a critical component to achieving long-term sustainable development. UNDP's Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) aims to identify concrete policy recommendations and practical measures that address the environmental concerns of the poor in developing countries. By building partnerships and supporting learning and knowledge-sharing at local, national and global levels, PEI focuses on promoting more effective ways to integrate the environmental priorities of the poor into national strategies and policy processes for poverty eradication and sustainable development.