This guidance document was issued by the European Commission as Guideline No. 6 in its "Tools and Methods Series". A key guideline is that where environment and climate change are selected as a focal sector — or where the European Union (EU) considers including a component to supporting the partner country’s efforts to integrate environment and climate change — the approach developed by the joint UNDP–UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative should be used.
These guidelines provide a framework for strengthening the contribution of European Union (EU) international cooperation and development policy to sustainable development by integrating, or mainstreaming, environmental and climate change considerations into the different phases of the EU programme and project cycle. The guidelines are intended for staff in the European Commission (EC), EU Delegations, and partner institutions; the updated guidelines were published in 2009.
The guidelines are presented in three chapters; they are complemented by several additional resources;
- a separately published executive summary;
- nine annexes that provide practical tools and examples, including template terms of reference (ToR);
- sector notes (in development) and a series of climate change sector scripts, available on Capacity4Dev, which illustrate and provide concrete examples of how the environment and climate change can be mainstreamed in specific sectors.