7 December 2014: “Coherence across the poverty eradication, disaster reduction and climate agendas is essential for inclusive, low emission and climate-resilient development,” UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark said in a session on ‘Zero Poverty. Zero Emissions. Within a generation?’ during the Development & Climate Days at the 20th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 20) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Clark highlighted four lessons learned from UNDP’s work on integrated, coherent approaches, which she suggested could help UN Member States in finding synergies around the agreements being negotiated on post-2015 development, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change.

First, Clark recommended mainstreaming climate risk management into development planning and disaster reduction. Second, she said empowering communities to identify and scale up local innovations and solutions is effective in supporting climate-resilient livelihoods. Third, Clark stressed strengthening country capacity to enable countries to develop and implement their own paths towards zero-emissions, zero-poverty futures. Finally, she proposed supporting countries to stimulate green entrepreneurship and low-emissions, climate-resilient solutions, including by reducing barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The outcomes of the three negotiation processes “will be more powerful if there is synergy between them,” Clark said, and observed signs of an emerging consensus that these three agendas “must go hand in hand,” partially in recognition of awareness that climate change and disasters can knock development progress off course.

The Development & Climate Days took place from 6-7 December 2014, in Lima, Peru. [UNDP Administrator Remarks] [IISD RS Coverage of Lima Climate Change Conference]