The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a new Strategic Plan (2018-2021), a blueprint to help countries eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, accelerate structural transformations for sustainable development, and build resilience to crises and shocks.

The latter is a particular priority in the Arab region, with the nexus to environmental sustainability of growing importance. By better understanding the role of environmental sustainability as a development and humanitarian imperative, more integrated solutions can be adopted for crisis prevention and more risk-informed models of development to achieve the SDGs, recover from crisis, and sustain peace.

In partnership with fellow members of the UN Development System, UNDP is now scaling up its support to address this challenge. Today UNDP implements over $200 million of grants from bilateral donors for initiatives dedicated to addressing ecosystem fragility, water depletion, energy insecurity, waste management and climate risk in communities affected by conflict in the Arab region.