V.F: Environment and Sustainable Development

Make greater progress in integrating environment issues into national development priorities and financing those priorities

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103. Poor people depend disproportionately on the environment for their livelihoods. Despite growing attention to environmental issues over the last two decades, insufficient progress has been made in integrating environment issues into national development priorities and financing those priorities. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005 reported that over 60 per cent of the ecosystem services provided worldwide is in decline. The poor continue to have very limited access to energy services. Indeed, the number of people without access to modern energy services has declined only marginally over the last decades. Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries still lack access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack access to modern fuel for cooking and heating. Added to these challenges, climate change is a growing threat to livelihoods and development: droughts, floods and other weather-related events reverse development in many parts of the world. 104. In degraded environments women have to spend more of their time collecting water and fuel wood, and children suffer more from respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. Last year alone 1.8 million children died as a result of contaminated water supplies. Many community groups and ethnic minorities lack a voice in the management of shared resources and have little security of tenure over the land, forests and fisheries they manage. In all, local administrations have limited capacities to manage natural resources and provide services to the poor. 105. The UNDP goal in the area of environment and energy is to strengthen national capacity to manage the environment in a sustainable manner while ensuring adequate protection of the poor. Specific results have been identified to mainstream environmental and energy issues into development planning; mobilize finance for improved environmental management; address increasing threats from climate change; and build local capacity to better manage the environment and deliver services, especially water and energy. UNDP recognizes that disaster risk reduction has many elements in common with climate risk reduction and will combine its efforts in these two related areas, where applicable. 106. UNDP and UNEP are strengthening their global, regional and country-level cooperation to help countries accelerate progress toward sustainable development. A memorandum of understanding between the organizations establishes how each will contribute to joint activities. Benchmarks are established to facilitate joint monitoring of its implementation. Mainstreaming environment and energy 107. UNDP will continue to support capacity development for countries to ensure that environment and energy are taken into account in drawing up and implementing national policies, strategies and programmes, also considering the inclusion of multilateral environmental agreements. Such capacity will include the ability to conduct environmental and energy assessments and ensure broad public participation in policy articulation. UNDP will provide advice, methodologies and tools. Substantive support will be offered in combating land degradation and desertification (including through the Drylands Development Centre); water governance and resource management; biodiversity and ecosystem services for development; chemical management; and energy service delivery, among others. In the case of land degradation and biodiversity conservation, UNDP will continue to mobilize GEF and other funding in its capacity as an implementing agency of the GEF. 108. A central initiative to support environmental mainstreaming is the Poverty and Environment Facility, a Nairobi-based unit that will build on UNDP and UNEP collaboration on the Poverty and Environment Initiative. The facility will provide technical products and services to regional offices to mainstream environment into national development planning, and will extend services in the substantive areas mentioned above. Mobilizing environmental financing 109. Over the past 15 years, UNDP technical assistance in environment and energy has evolved from supporting technology demonstration projects to promoting market development for environment-friendly technologies. For example, in the case of wind power, where UNDP may have supported pilot wind farms in the past, it now focuses on the policy change and institutional development needed to promote greater private sector investment in wind energy (such as wind tariffs and power purchase agreements). UNDP has lead in mobilizing additional financial resources to support these market development efforts in developing countries, largely from global environmental funds such as the GEF. During 2004-2006, for example, UNDP/GEF secured $2.8 billion in new commitments for environmental projects. But even those funds are not adequate to address needs. UNDP will use its financial and programme management expertise to put in place a broad programme of environmental financing. This programme will develop new approaches to stimulating markets and payments for environmental services such as environmental funds, carbon markets, and markets for eco-system services, and other sources. Strategic partnerships have been established for that purpose with UNEP and with the carbon finance unit of the World Bank. 110. One UNDP initiative to increase environmental financing through developing environmental markets is the MDG Carbon Facility, launched in December 2005. The facility builds on the successful role of UNDP as a broker for GEF funding. It will identify and develop projects, mobilize co-financing, facilitate project approval and support project implementation, as well as provide Kyoto Protocol-related services such as registering project design documents with the clean development mechanism and accessing Carbon Emission Reductions Project traders. Promoting adaptation to climate change 111. Evidence is mounting that development efforts are undermined by climate change: droughts, land degradation, degraded water supplies and biodiversity loss all pose a threat to development in general, and the poor in particular. The objective of UNDP in climate change is to lower the risks that it poses to developing countries – particularly for the poor – so as to attain the MDGs. 112. In addition to current UNDP support to countries in mitigating climate change (through energy efficiency programmes, for example), UNDP will enhance its capacity to respond to programme country requests for assistance in their efforts to adapt to the inevitable consequences of climate change. To achieve this objective, the strategy of UNDP focuses on supporting countries in (a) assessing vulnerabilities in key sectors; (b) integrating climate change risk considerations into national development plans and policies; and (c) gaining access to new funding sources to support innovative adaptation initiatives. 113. UNDP has a strong record of support to countries in this area. UNDP helped secure funding for preparing numerous ‘second national communications’, as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is developing national adaptation programmes of action in the 30 LDCs. The recently established Special Climate Change Fund and Least Developed Countries Fund, managed by the GEF with proceeds from the clean development mechanism for adaptation, will provide a solid financial basis for continuing work in the future. UNDP will also integrate climate risk management into its programmes across the four focus areas. Expanding access to environmental and energy services for the poor 114. Access to environmental and energy services are essential for poverty reduction and economic growth. The scaling up of environmental (such as water and other ecosystem services) and energy service delivery to ensure nationwide coverage will require considerable institutional capacity development. This is especially true at the local level since service delivery is increasingly decentralized to local public authorities. In line with national policies, strategies and programmes, UNDP will strengthen the capacity of national and local authorities to undertake participatory planning processes, assessment and adoption of effective service delivery systems, including data generation and analysis as a basis for policy design. Building on extensive experience from the GEF Small Grants Programme and other initiatives, UNDP will assist local authorities to build the capacity of local agents including communities, non-governmental organizations, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, financial institutions and other private sector actors to manage and stimulate business and development benefits from environmental and energy service delivery.

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