Welcome to the Poverty and Environment Electronic Discussion

["Kristen Lewis" <kristen.lewis@undp.org>]

Dear friend, 

Welcome to the Poverty-Environment Electronic Conference, sponsored by
the United Nations Development Programme and the European Commission. 
This electronic conference/dialogue begins Monday 5 October and will be
open until Friday 16 October.  It will provide an exciting opportunity
for you to interact with leaders in the development field from around
the world, yet will require only a limited amount of time over a
two-week period. 

The purpose of this electronic conference is to facilitate a discussion
on poverty and the environment that will lead to identification of key
emerging issues and gaps in our knowledge that require further thought
and research.  The topics identified will help UNDP and the EC chose
topics for a series of in-depth issues papers.  The electronic
conference will also help to build a network of professionals working in
this area.  

As background, we are using a paper prepared by IDS (the Institute of
Development Studies in Sussex), which advocates the adoption of an
"environmental entitlements" approach to addressing issues that lie at
the poverty/environment nexus, to stimulate discussion.

This electronic discussion is part of a year-long initiative on poverty
and the environment aimed at identifying concrete policy recommendations
and practical measures that address the environmental concerns of the
poor in developing countries. Development practitioners are increasingly
searching for ways in which policy interventions can achieve multiple
objectives and thus more effectively address the livelihood needs of
people living in poverty. The goal of the Poverty and Environment
Initiative is to provide a forum for practitioners, policy-makers and
researchers working in this area to share their experiences and identify
solutions. 

The initiative involves the preparation of a series of analytical,
in-depth issues papers; this  electronic conference of leading
development thinkers and practitioners; and a technical-level workshop
of experts to be held in Brussels in December 1998.  The process will
culminate in a meeting of ministers from developing and developed
countries, which will be held to coincide with the April 1999 meeting
of  the Commission on Sustainable Development.  The outcome of the
Ministerial meeting is expected to be policy recommendations and
identification of areas for practical, country-level action and
potential win-win solutions.

HOW IT WILL WORK

>From 5-16 October, you may send your contributions to the e-mail address
of the discussion list, pov-env@sdnp.undp.org.  Doing so will send your
message to all the other participants in the list. You, in turn, will
receive the contributions of the other list participants.  After 16
October, the list will close.  By the end of October, we will send you a
report of the electronic conference.  We will also make the subsequent
issues papers, as well as the results of the technical workshop and the
Ministerial meeting, available to you on a website as they become
available.

We will also be archiving the proceedings of the electronic conference
on a website, which will be establish after the conference has been
underway for a few days.  We will inform you of the address by 8
October.

NETIQUETTE

Kindly keep in mind that all messages that you send to the list will
appear in the mail boxes of all the list participants.  Please follow
the rules so that we can have a meaningful dialogue:

1. Please do not send personal queries or large attached files.
2. Advertisements and announcements not related to the topic are
prohibited.
3. Falsifying the originating address of any message or posting is not
allowed.
4. If you are having a technical problem or need the background
document, please contact kristen.lewis@undp.org; do not inform us of a
technical problem by sending your message to the list.

ADMINISTRATION
The list is hosted by SDNP on behalf of UNDP and the EC.  Only
subscribers
may post messages.

If you have further questions, know someone who would like to be added
to the list, or would yourself like to be removed from the list, please
contact Kristen Lewis at 212-906-5871, fax 212-906-6973 or e-mail 
kristen.lewis@undp.org.



-- 
Kristen Lewis
Programme Specialist
Sustainable Energy and Environment Division
Bureau for Development Policy
United Nations Development Programme
Phone: 212-906-5871
Fax: 212-906-6973
E-mail: kristen.lewis@undp.org