Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Poverty

The UN Millennium Summit of September 2000 and the ensuing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have catalyzed an unprecedented level of interest in measurable progress towards poverty reduction. Although the linkage between poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability has been powerfully argued and demonstrated, environmental objectives remain weakly integrated within the poverty agenda.

Simultaneously, existing multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) are legally binding international instruments for advancing environmental objectives that unfortunately as yet have little coherence with human development and poverty alleviation goals. Community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) is a critical important juncture of poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability that is only tangentially or weakly supported through existing MEA mechanisms.

Funded by an IISD Innovation Fund grant, work is underway to develop a roadmap for integrating MEA objectives with the MDGs through national development policies and processes conducive to community-based natural resources management initiatives. The primary aim of the work is to initially develop and eventually demonstrate an integrated assessment process that reinforces linkages between MEAs and supports the CBNRM projects that link directly to the MDGs.