August 2010: The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI), a global UN-led programme that supports country-led efforts to mainstream poverty-environment linkages into national development planning, has released its 2009 Annual Progress Report.

The report outlines lessons learned from various countries delivering on poverty-environment efforts, the evolution of the PEI programmatic approach at the country level, and technical support provided in specific areas, such as the long-term impacts of climate change adaptation and the Green Economy agenda, among others. The report describes the work conducted on climate change, including the development of climate adaptation plans, in Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Nepal, Malawi, and Tanzania is also described.

The annual report highlights some of the achievements made at the country level, inter alia, increased awareness and understanding of poverty-environment issues and capacities for mainstreaming; generation of country-specific evidence on the contribution of the environment to pro-poor economic growth and human well-being; environmental sustainability included as priority objective or outcomes in national planning processes; inclusion of poverty-environment indicators into policy documents and monitoring systems; increased budget allocation for poverty-environment measures; and improved integration of poverty-environment linkages into joint UN programming processes at country level. [UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Report]