The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set targets to reduce poverty and sustain the environment. MDG 7 challenges policymakers to ‘ensure environmental sustainability’. Poverty and the environment are closely linked: natural resources provide benefits including food, shelter and resources from which people can generate income.

The Poverty-Environment Partnership argues that ecosystems and natural resources are critical sources of wealth that can help poor people to lift themselves out of poverty. However, countries need support to strengthen their ability to monitor and assess how environmental management contributes to poverty reduction.

A major challenge for achieving the MDGs is providing policymakers with the information they need to make effective decisions about environmental management. This is vital, because insufficient commitment towards ensuring environmental sustainability affects other MDGs, especially those relating to health, gender and governance.

The research shows:

• The whole information process – collecting, processing, analysing and reporting – is time-consuming and expensive.
• Countries are not yet adopting the right national and sub-national targets and indicators to assess whether they are achieving sound, equitable natural resources management for poverty reduction.
• Many countries lack the data or the resources to adequately monitor progress in environmental sustainability.
• In other instances, a lack of reporting suggests that countries are not making sufficient investments in environmental resources or environmental governance. They therefore choose not to report because it would reveal poor progress.

Different groups of people need information at different scales. Farmers need information on a range of factors (including soils, crops, livestock breeds and wildlife populations) at the scale of their village or local community. Policymakers need similar information, but with data covering much larger areas. So what can be done to help people get the information they need?

The research recommends:

• MDG Target 9 highlights the importance of restoring ecosystems: all national and international policy agendas should prioritise this.
• Development and environmental organisations should support developing countries in setting more appropriate targets and indicators to meet their specific national environmental needs.
• Environmental indicators should be included in all MDG strategies, especially those addressing health, water and sanitation, poverty, gender and governance.
• It is important to promote the many benefits of investment in environmental assets, particularly financial benefits.
• The MDG framework emphasises measures that look at the extent of natural resources (such as forest cover), their uses and conditions (such as protected land). These can be useful, but policymakers need new indicators that examine the links between environmental management and poverty reduction.
• Developed countries should monitor their own environmental issues, such as climate change, biodiversity, energy production and agriculture: these can have a significant influence on the state of the environment in other countries.

Source(s):
‘Assessing environment’s contribution to poverty reduction’, Poverty-Environment Partnership, 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Government of Denmark; Government of Sweden; SNV Netherlands Development Organization; United Nations Development Programme; United Nations Environment Programme; WWF International

id21 Research Highlight: 6 March 2006

Further Information:
Linda Ghanimè
Energy and Environment Group
Bureau for Development Policy
United Nations Development Programme
304 East 45th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 10017
USA

Tel: +1 212 906 6480
Fax: +1 212 906 6690
Contact the contributor: linda.ghanime@undp.org

United Nations Development Programme

Dan Tunstall
World Resources Institute
10 G Street NE, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20002
USA

Tel: +1 202 729 7600
Fax: +1 202 729 7610
Contact the contributor: dan@wri.org

World Resources Institute, USA

Other related links:
'The economic value of the environment - a missing component in the MDGs?'

'Linking conservation and sustainable livelihoods'

'Upgrading slums and preventing new ones: lessons from Cambodia'

'The sustainability MDG in Africa: the missing international dimension'

'Using information for better environmental management in India'