This second 2015 edition of the handbook is designed to serve as a guide for policymakers and practitioners in mainstreaming poverty and the environment into planning and budgeting processes. It is based on nearly a decade of experience from the Poverty-Environment Initiative, a collaboration between the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.

Pursuing an integrated approach to development that incorporates economic, social and environmental dimensions, and a transition towards inclusive, green economies, Poverty-Environment Initiative suggests this economic transformation can be achieved through poverty-environment mainstreaming—by taking pro-poor, gender-responsive environment and climate issues into the heart of economic decision-making, particularly national and subnational planning and budgeting processes. Led by ministries of finance, planning and local government, and supported by ministries of environment, poverty-environment mainstreaming lets the benefits of environmental investment and the costs of environmental damage to be considered in mainstream economic decision-making. The handbook also draws on selected experiences from other programmes and initiatives to bring readers the best of current practices and information. In Arabic, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.