Environmental Stewardship Must Become a 'Central Pillar' for World Bank: Report

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The World Bank Group must do a better job of incorporating environmental stewardship into its assistance strategies, an internal review found.

The Independent Evaluation Group examined the effectiveness of World Bank projects in nine countries between 1990 and 2007. While the bank has made progress, results vary. About a third of investment projects through its private lending arm failed to meet social and environmental requirements.

"It identifies several crucial constraints that need to be addressed, perhaps most importantly insufficient government commitment to environmental goals and weak institutional capacity to deal with them," the report (pdf) said.

"But constraints within the Bank Group, including insufficient attention to longer-term sustainable development, must be reduced as well."

The report said the World Bank’s commitments topped $400 billion between 1990 and 2007, with 2,401 projects involving the environment. Yet this figure appears to overstate actual volume, the report warned. It offered a slew of recommendations to help improve project monitoring and evaluation to gauge performance, including identifying baseline assessments and figuring the amount of financing has supported environmental improvement.

The report suggested the World Bank reformulate its environmental strategy to ensure that environmental stewardship become a "central pillar" of its efforts to support inclusive globalization. The report cautioned that while addressing climate change is crucial, other environmental concerns, such as waster resource management and pollution, must not be ignored.

Nonlending activities have proven successful, such as helping countries set environmental goals. Yet environmental issues have been treated "unevenly" in analytical and lending activities.

The bank's portfolios have suffered from inconsistencies: Projects aimed at strengthening environmental management in Brazil and China made progress, while those in India did not. Dedicated credit lines geared toward industrial pollution in many countries have proved ineffective. Investment projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in several sectors, including agriculture and forestry, delivered inadequate performance.

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