Established in 2001, the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP) is an informal network of practitioners from development agencies, international environmental nongovernment organizations, and others working on poverty reduction and the environment. PEP shares knowledge and operational experience in addressing poverty and the environment, and seeks to improve coordination and collaboration among partners, while promoting ongoing and future joint activities.

The objectives of the partnership are to:

• build a consensus on the critical links between poverty and the environment, particularly that better environmental management is essential to lasting poverty reduction

• review the activities of development agencies to build on common themes and address gaps in knowledge

The focus of the partnership is on three broad areas of collaboration:

• knowledge management and exchange of expertise and information on mainstreaming environment among participating organizations

• conceptual and analytical work on the links between poverty and environment including work on indicators, monitoring and evaluation

• wider communication, advocacy, policy dialogue and alliances in order to influence discussion and political decision-making

Membership is open to development agencies and development banks with an interest in the relationship between poverty and the environment. The most recent meeting of the partnership in March 2005 was attended by the representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the donor countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden), ADB, AfDB, CIDA, CIFOR, DANIDA, DFID, EC, FAO, GTZ, IIED, IMF, IDS, IADB, JBIC, KFW, OECD-DAC, SDC, SEI, SIDA, SIWI, UNDP, UNEP, USAID, WHO and the World Bank.