Advancing Sustainable Development in Practice

An integrated approach to strengthen the sustainable management of natural resources and at the same time address poverty was the key focus of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Poverty-Environment Action for Sustainable Development (PEA). The collaboration dedicated itself to bringing poverty, environment, and climate objectives into the heart of national and subnational plans, policies, budgets, and public and private finance in over 10 developing countries – following over 20 countries in the predecessor project, Poverty Environment Initiative.

The PEA and UNITAR have now joined forces to develop and deliver a set of two free, self-paced e-learning courses “Sustainable development in practice”.
1. Introduction to Sustainable Development in Practice: Why we need an integrated approach
to action on Environment, Climate and Poverty Reduction
2. Advancing Sustainable Development in Practice: How to Integrate Environment, Climate
and Poverty Reduction?

The courses are based on years of experience, lessons, case studies, and practical guidance distilled by the PEI/PEA project and synthesized in the PEA Handbook. The courses form part of UNITAR’s growing portfolio of trainings that promote an inclusive green economy and a holistic approach to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This is an Advanced Course that builds upon the learnings from the "Introductory Course titled Introduction to Sustainable Development in Practice: Why we need an integrated approach to action on environment, climate and poverty reduction". Building upon the foundations of the Introductory Course, the Advanced Course looks at how to take an integrated approach to policy analysis, integrated planning, designing interventions, financing, communications, and monitoring and evaluation of poverty and environment issues at national and sub-national levels. This course provides learners with a conceptual understanding of how to operationalize integrated activities on interlinked poverty and environment issues, with pathways based on practical examples and case studies, notably from the PEA project. It follows a policy cycle approach, and looks at key interventions which can be made at each stage of the cycle to adopt an integrated approach to interlinked poverty and environment issues.

Each module of the course features a short quiz. The wrap up module features a final quiz and an interactive problem-solving scenario. A certificate of completion is awarded to learners who complete:
• All videos, interactive lessons, and activities
• Final quiz with a 70% or higher score