The rapid growth experienced in Asia has come at a cost to our environment, such as air pollution, water contamination and scarcity, chemicals in soils and food, and over-exploitation of forest and marine resources. This unsustainable approach to growth has significant and immediate impacts on people, particularly the poor and marginalized people whose livelihoods largely depend on natural resources. Climate change has already, and will continue to, intensify these problems.
The UNDP-UNEP Poverty Environment Initiative (PEI) offers a unique way of tackling these issues together by offering policy options to governments on how sustainable use of natural resources can help reduce poverty and maintain economic growth. With strong support from six donors globally, PEI in Asia Pacific is working with nine countries to mainstream pro-poor natural resource management into economic policies and decision making to achieve more inclusive green economies.
This publication brings together stories from the Asia Pacific region to demonstrate how this mainstreaming approach can be put into practice and the kind of results we can achieve. The post-2015 agenda promises to be a historical opportunity to adopt a more integrated approach to development, with poverty reduction and environmental sustainability at the heart of this new framework.