David H Smith is based in UNEP’s Africa Office and is the Chief Economist and Regional Coordinator for the Africa component of the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Action for the SDGs (PEA) programme. The PEA and its precursor the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) support governments to integrate sustainable environmental and natural resources (ENR) management into national and sector development planning and budgeting processes. The rationale for this is that unsustainable ENR use over time reduces the social and economic benefits generated for people. Thus, the achievement of development objectives such as poverty reduction and food security are enhanced if environment and natural resources are used sustainably and their social and economic benefits equitably shared. An element of this work focuses on integrating ENR into multi-dimensional poverty assessments and poverty reduction targeting.
David is a New Zealand national who previously worked at the Ministry for the Environment, with a focus on integrating environmental factors into sector reform processes.
He has a BA(Hons) in economics, a MPhil in agricultural economics and a PhD in development economics from Massey University in New Zealand.
