This handbook is designed to serve as a guide for champions and practitioners engaged in the painstaking task of mainstreaming poverty-environment linkages into national development planning. It draws on a substantial body of experience at the country level and the many lessons learned by the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme in working with governments - especially ministries of planning, finance and environment - to support efforts to integrate the complex interrelationships between poverty reduction and improved environmental management into national planning and decision-making.