Is world bank ignoring the environment?

Concern about the World Bank's recent merger of its environment and infrastructure units is being expressed by the World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C. "The question is whether the Bank will implement its new approach in a way consistent with its promises;' states WRI President Jonathan Lash.

In its restructuring, the World Bank integrated its vice president of Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development and its vice president of Infrastructure into one position: vice president of Sustainable Development. "This reorganization raises a number of questions regarding how the Bank's safeguards framework will function without an independent vice presidency for the environment," stresses WRI representative Smita Nakhooda.

"For the Bank to realize its potential to help client countries integrate environmental considerations into development projects and policies, and to exercise global leadership on environmental challenges, it must do more than design appropriate organizational structures. Success is at least as dependent on getting the concepts, incentives, and politics right."

A WRI policy paper details how the evidence never has been stronger that protecting the environment is compatible with the World Bank's development objectives, as well as essential to achieving them. The Bank lends about $20,000,000,000 per year in pursuit of its mission to fight poverty, but findings from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) indicate that the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 cannot be met in the absence of more effective stewardship of the environment.

The MA is gaining currency among environmental and development professionals, as it links improved ecosystem management and better governance of natural resources to opportunities for poverty reduction. In further recognition of the link between poverty and the environment, the G8 has asked the Bank to take a leadership role in addressing climate change, which poses a particular threat to poor countries and communities.

"The global community is in desperate need of environmental and sustainable-development leadership, and the Bank--in appropriate partnership with others--has the potential to provide it," concludes Frances Seymour, director of WRI's Institutions and Governance Program.

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