ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the major international policy milestones in the evolution of the field of environmental peacebuilding and summarizes some of the key lessons learned. The chapter draws upon the policy and fieldwork conducted by UN Environment Programme (UN Environment) since 1999 when it established a dedicated capacity to conduct post-conflict environmental assessments and support governments in environmental clean-up, restoration, governance, and peacebuilding. After a brief introduction to environmental peacebuilding, the chapter introduces four main periods of international policy development from 1999 to 2018 involving UN Environment. Within each period, the major policy milestones are introduced together with a series of lessons learned from field-level work conducted by UN Environment and partners. Opportunities and challenges highlighted include measuring contributions of natural resource governance to peace and conflict prevention, bringing effective approaches to scale, and leveraging data sharing and access. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future work and research.
