Following the change of emphasis described under the menu item User Guide, IIED has now developed a First Rough Draft of a “Guide to Environmental Mainstreaming”.

Part 1 of this guide analyse the contextual issues (e.g. drivers and constraints) and institutional dimensions issues that frame environmental mainstreaming and provides a perspective on the key challenges.

Part 2 discusses the broad range of mainstreaming approaches and tools that are best suited to particular challenges and decision-making tasks and provides guidance on when particular approaches might best be used. It also contains profiles of selected key approaches/tools to environmental mainstreaming. These are focused on those that are likely to be applicable in most countries and situations because they are legislative requirements, proven standard practice, and/or of broad applicability.

Please comment

We would welcome comments on this first rough draft and suggestions for improvement. We would be particularly grateful for suggestions regarding the selected profiles in Part 2 in which there are still gaps and text that needs further work (highlighted in yellow). These should be sent to userguide@iied.org by the end of February 2009. After that we will revise and finalise the Guide.

Publication

The Guide to Environmental Mainstreaming will be published as a ‘working document’ on this website, and will be available to download freely.

Audience

We hope this guide will be of interest and use to all those who are striving to address environmental issues in development policy-making and decision-taking.

Further work

In the next phase of our work, staring in April 2009, we will develop a Sourcebook on Environmental Mainstreaming jointly with the OECD, UNDP, and the UNDP/UNEP Poverty Environment Initiative. This will provide in-depth guidance on, and real examples of: policy frameworks for mainstreaming environment and climate change opportunities and threats; entry points in development decision-making and investment; communication requirements and approaches; approaches to capacity-building; monitoring and indicators; sources of information and support; and a wide range of tools and tactics, drawing on work by IIED, UN, OECD and from many other sources.