Environment and Sustainable Development
9 items available
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Environmental sustainability is fundamental to sustainable development. This series covers current and emerging issues in order to promote debate and broaden the understanding of environmental challenges as integral to equitable and sustained economic growth. Drawing on analysis and practical experience from across the World Bank and from client countries, the books in this series will be central to the implementation of the World Bank’s Environment Strategy, and relevant to the development community, policy makers, and academia.
Items in this collection
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Publication
The Sunken Billions Revisited: Progress and Challenges in Global Marine Fisheries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-02)Global marine fisheries are in crisis: 90 percent are fully fished and overfished. The result is lost economic benefits of approximately $83 billion a year ---the “sunken billions” of the title. Reducing overfishing would allow severely overexploited fish stocks to recover over time. Subsequently, the combination of larger fish stocks and reduced but sustainable fishing activities would lead to higher economic yields. However, to reach that equilibrium, comprehensive and coordinated reforms are necessary. The Sunken Billions Revisited: Progress and Challenges in Global Marine Fisheries builds on The Sunken Billions: The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform, a 2009 study published by the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, but with a deeper regional analysis. -
Publication
The Changing Wealth of Nations : Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium
(World Bank, 2011)This book is about development and measuring development progress. While precise definitions may vary, development is, at heart, a process of building wealth, the produced, natural, human, and institutional capital which is the source of income and wellbeing. A key finding is that it is intangible wealth, human and institutional capital, which dominates the wealth of all countries, rising as a share of the total as countries climb the development ladder. The book is divided into two parts. The first part provides the big picture of changes in wealth by income group and geographic region, with a focus on natural capital because it is especially important for low-income developing countries. The second part presents case studies that illustrate particular aspects of wealth accounting, including accounting for climate change, the role of intangible capital in growth and development, measuring human capital, and the use of wealth accounting to improve transparency and governance in resource-rich economies. The final chapter reports on the implementation of wealth accounting by countries. The appendixes provide the full wealth accounts for individual countries and for aggregations by income group and geographic region. -
Publication
Strategic Environmental Assessment in Policy and Sector Reform : Conceptual Model and Operational Guidance
(World Bank, 2011)Around the world, it is increasingly being recognized that for sustainability goals to be reached, efforts need to go beyond complying with standards and mitigating adverse impacts, to identifying environmental sustainability as an objective of the development process. This approach requires the integration of environmental, sustainability, and climate change considerations into policy and sector reform. Because sector reform brings about significant policy change involving adjustments in laws, policies, regulations, and institutions, it is a sensitive political process often driven by strong economic interests. Policy makers are subject to a number of political pressures that originate in vested interests. The recommendations of environmental assessment are often of little relevance unless there are constituencies that support them and have sufficient political power to make their voices heard in the policy process. While strong constituencies are important during the design of sector reform, they are even more important during implementation. It follows that effective environmental assessment in policy and sector reform requires strong constituencies backing up recommendations, a system to hold policy makers accountable for their decisions, and institutions that can balance competing and, sometimes, conflicting interests. -
Publication
Convenient Solutions to an Inconvenient Truth : Ecosystem-based Approaches to Climate Change
(World Bank, 2010)Global warming and changes in climate have already had observed impacts on natural ecosystems and species. Natural systems such as wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs, cloud forests, and Arctic and high-latitude ecosystems are especially vulnerable to climate-induced disturbances. However, enhanced protection and management of biological resources and habitats can mitigate the impacts and contribute to solutions as nations and communities strive to adapt to climate change. Biodiversity is the foundation and mainstay of agriculture, forests, and fisheries. Biological resources provide the raw materials for livelihoods, agriculture, medicines, trade, tourism, and industry. Forests, grasslands, freshwater, and marine and other natural ecosystems provide a range of services often not recognized in national economic accounts but vital to human welfare: regulation of water flows and water quality, flood control, pollination, decontamination, carbon sequestration, soil conservation, and nutrient and hydrological cycling. Current efforts to address climate change focus mainly on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by adopting cleaner energy strategies and on reducing the vulnerability of communities at risk by improving infrastructure to meet new energy and water needs. This book offers a compelling argument for including ecosystem-based approaches to mitigation and adaptation as an essential pillar in national strategies to address climate change. Such ecosystem-based strategies can offer cost-effective, proven, and sustainable solutions that contribute to, and complement, other national and regional adaptation strategies. -
Publication
Environmental Flows in Water Resources Policies, Plans, and Projects : Findings and Recommendations
(World Bank, 2009)The overall goal of the analysis presented in this report is to advance the understanding and integration in operational terms of environmental water allocation into integrated water resources management. The specific objectives of this report are the following: 1) document the changing understanding of environmental flows, by both water resources practitioners and by environmental experts within the Bank and in borrowing countries; 2) draw lessons from experience in implementing environmental flows by the Bank, other international development organizations with experience in this area, and a small number of developed and developing countries; 3) develop an analytical framework to support more effective integration of environmental flow considerations for informing and guiding: (a) the planning, design, and operations decision making of water resources infrastructure projects; (b) the legal, policy, institutional, and capacity development related to environmental flows; and (c) restoration programs; and 4) provide recommendations for improvements in technical guidance to better incorporate environmental flow considerations into the preparation and implementation of lending operations. -
Publication
Strategic Environmental Assessment for Policies : An Instrument for Good Governance
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)Contents of this report are: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and policy formulation by Kulsum Ahmed, and Ernesto Sanchez-Triana. Policy-level strategic environmental assessments: process integration and incentives of policy proponents by Leonard Ortolano. The continuous process of policy formation by Martha S. Feldman, and Anne M. Khademian. Toward environmental priority setting in development by Richard D. Morgenstern. Giving the most vulnerable a voice by Caroline Kende-Robb, and Warren A. Van Wicklin III. Building and reinforcing social accountability for improved environmental governance by Harry Blair. Learning in environmental policy making and implementation by Alnoor Ebrahim. Using strategic environmental assessments to design and implement public policy by Kulsum Ahmed, and Ernesto Sanchez-Triana. -
Publication
Environmental Health and Child Survival : Epidemiology, Economics, Experiences
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)This report complements Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development by looking at environmental health issues that affect child health broadly, while also exploring the links through malnutrition. This report argues that environmental health interventions are preventive measures that are imperative to improve child survival with sustainable results in the long term. Preventive measures, such as improving environmental conditions are effective in reducing a child's exposure to a disease agent and thereby averting infection. The overall aim of this report is to provide information to decision-makers on the optimal design of policies to help reduce premature deaths and illness in children under five years of age. To protect the health, development, and wellbeing of young children, decision-makers must identify and reduce environmental risk factors by providing appropriate interventions that prevent and diminish exposures. This study is intended to advance the understanding of what those risk factors are, when and how to reduce children's exposure to them, and how to mitigate their consequent health impact. -
Publication
Poverty and Environment : Understanding Linkages at the Household Level
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)This report seeks to present micro evidence on how environmental changes affect poor households. It focuses primarily on environmental resources that are outside the private sphere, particularly commonly held and managed resources such as forests, fisheries, and wildlife. The objectives for this volume are three-fold. It is first interested in using an empirical data-driven approach to examine the dependence of the poor on natural resources. The second objective is to examine the role of the environment in determining health outcomes. A third area of interest concerns the role of policy instruments and reforms. This report uses general economics literature as well as data collected by the World Bank and its partners to analyze poverty-environment linkages at the household level. Poverty-environment linkages are inherently dynamic and involve behavioral responses that make the identification of cause and effect difficult. Thus, questions related to these linkages are ideally answered with the use of panel datasets or with data from randomized experiments. -
Publication
International trade and Climate Change : Economic, Legal, and Institutional Perspectives
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)The broad objective of this study is to analyze areas in which the climate change agenda intersects with multilateral trade obligations. The study identifies the key issues at stake, as well as possible actions -- at the national and multilateral levels -- that could help developing countries strengthen their capacities to respond to emerging conflicts between international trade and global climate regimes while taking advantage of new opportunities. The study also attempts to respond to the need for more sector-specific analysis. Chapter two contributes to the literature by exploring the economic, environmental, and political rationale underlying the potential tension between implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the existing World Trade Organization (WTO) principles. The chapter further identifies areas where priorities for proactive policy initiatives could minimize potential damage to both trade and global environmental regimes. Chapter three explores and identifies key barriers and opportunities to spur the transfer and diffusion of climate-friendly and clean-energy technologies in developing countries. It further identifies policies and institutional changes that could lead to the removal of barriers and increased market penetration of climate-friendly technology. Chapter four examines and builds on the different approaches that have emerged in the negotiations surrounding trade in environmental goods and services, and it proposes a framework for integrating climate objectives in the discussions. Chapter five presents the conclusions and provides a framework for integrating and streamlining the global environment within the global trading system.