Building Resilience for an Interdependent World

Why the environment matters and what DFID should do about it - IIED, March 2009

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The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has recently consulted widely on a new White Paper setting priorities and ways of working for the government on eliminating world poverty.

IIED has contributed to these consultations with this paper which provides six recommendations for action:

• Bring a strong pro-poor perspective into UK and European responses to global environmental and economic problems.
   
• Engage much more on environment and natural resource management. In-house expertise and high-level commitment have steadily diminished over the last decade and need to be re-established.
• Broaden the focus from ‘human security’ and ‘climate proofing’ to encompass the resilience of ecosystems and natural resources on which people depend.
   
• Support poor countries’ capacity to plan for and respond to environmental and economic shocks and minimise their impacts on livelihoods and ecosystems.
   
• Strengthen effective funding channels to support local level initiatives that build resilience.
   
• Engage actively in efforts to move towards a ‘green economy’ model, which reduces carbon dependency and environmental degradation while creating employment opportunities and more equitable distribution of resources.

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