The World Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department is carrying out a review of ‘Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Development’. This will prepare the ground for a new Bank environmental strategy. The OED will review performance, and seek lessons from experience by assessing Bank performance in four main areas:
- Safeguards: ensuring that potential adverse impacts from Bank-financed projects are addressed in environmental assessments and monitoring plans.
- Stewardship: assisting borrowers to create a supportive framework and implement programs for environmentally sustainable development, via National Environmental Action Plans; Sector Studies; Pollution Control Projects; and Natural Resource Management Projects.
- Mainstreaming: building on synergies between poverty reduction, economic efficiency and environmental protection, through Country Assistance Strategies; Country Economic Reports; Structural/Sectoral Adjustment Lending; Portfolio Performance Reviews; and Research and Training.
- Global Sustainability: assisting borrowers and the international community to develop and implement instruments for addressing environmental issues of global concern, ie through the Global Environmental Facility; Montreal Protocol; and World Commission on Dams.
The OED review will be in two phases. The first consists of seven country case studies, seven cross-cutting thematic papers, followed by a synthesis paper scheduled for completion in October 1999. The countries chosen for case studies are: India, Mexico, Nigeria, Madagascar, Poland, China, and Morocco. An electronic discussion on the review topics ran in July and August (see: www.worldbank.org/devforum). A final report is scheduled for the Bank’s Board in May 2000 and for public dissemination a few months later.
NGOs have argued that the review should also address the Kyoto protocol; legal, judicial, and institutional reforms; the linkages between social and environmental assessments; adjustment lending and the role of participation in project design and implementation. The review should also look at ongoing as well as completed projects. OED has asked for input and documentation as well as nominations for participants at the consultative workshops.
Contact: Andres Liebenthal, OED, aliebenthal@worldbank.org.
