Publication: Republic of Colombia: Mitigating Environmental Degradation to Foster Growth and Reduce Inequality
Loading...
Published
2006-02-25
ISSN
Date
2020-06-17
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Over the last five decades, Colombia has made substantial progress in protecting its environment. This includes restructuring its legal and regulatory landscape, undertaking policy initiatives, and strengthening its capacity for protecting and managing its natural resources and environmental quality, and establishing a system of national parks and forestry reserves that covers more than a quarter of the country. Colombia's environmental management framework has focused on three main environmental priorities: (a) river basin management and conservation of water resources, (b) reforestation, and (c) conservation o f biodiversity. The analysis of the cost of environmental degradation conducted as part of the Country Environmental Analysis (CEA), shows that the most costly problems associated with environmental degradation are urban and indoor air pollution; inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene; natural disasters (such as flooding and landslides); and land degradation. The burden of these costs falls most heavily on vulnerable segments of the population, especially poor children under age five. The effects of environmental degradation associated with these principal causes are estimated to cost more than 3.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), mainly due to increased mortality and morbidity and decreased productivity. To identify alternatives aimed at abating the cost of environmental degradation, this CEA examines institutional and policy issues in the functioning of the country's environmental management system and suggests some cost-effective interventions.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2006. Republic of Colombia: Mitigating Environmental Degradation to Foster Growth and Reduce Inequality. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33924 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Environmental Priorities and Poverty Reduction : A Country Environmental Analysis for Colombia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)The analysis of the cost of environmental degradation conducted as part of the country environmental analysis (CEA) shows that the most costly problems associated with environmental degradation are urban and indoor air pollution; inadequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene; natural disasters (such as flooding and landslides); and land degradation. The burden of these costs falls most heavily on vulnerable segments of the population. To address these problems, this report identifies a number of cost-effective policy interventions that could be adopted in the short and medium terms to support sustainable development goals. In recent decades, considerable progress has been made in addressing the water and the forestry environmental agendas. The impact of environmental degradation on the most vulnerable groups suggests the need to increase emphasis on environmental health issues. However, the environmental management agenda has yet to catch up with this shift in priorities from watershed and forestry to environmental health problems because mechanisms in the current institutional structure to signal these changes are not yet in place. Improved monitoring and dissemination of information on environmental outcomes, assignment of accountability for environmental actions and outcomes, and involvement of a broad range of stakeholders are three important mechanisms to allow these signals to be picked up.Publication The Poverty/Environment Nexus in Cambodia and Lao People's Democratic Republic(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-01)Environmental degradation can inflict serious damage on poor people because their livelihoods often depend on natural resource use and their living conditions may offer little protection from air, water, and soil pollution. At the same time, poverty-constrained options may induce the poor to deplete resources and degrade the environment at rates that are incompatible with long-term sustainability. In such cases, degraded resources may precipitate a downward spiral, by further reducing the income and livelihoods of the poor. This "poverty/environment nexus" has become a major issue in the recent literature on sustainable development. In regions where the nexus is significant, jointly addressing problems of poverty and environmental degradation may be more cost-effective than addressing them separately. Empirical evidence on the prevalence and importance of the poverty/environment nexus is sparse because the requisite data are often difficult to obtain in developing countries. The authors use newly available spatial and survey data to investigate the spatial dimension of the nexus in Cambodia, and Lao People's Democratic Republic. The data enable the authors to quantify several environmental problems at the district and provincial level. In a parallel exercise, they map the provincial distribution of poor households. Merging the geographic information on poverty and the environment, the authors search for the nexus using geo-referenced indicator maps and statistical analysis. The results suggest that the nexus is country-specific: geographical, historical, and institutional factors may all play important roles in determining the relative importance of poverty and environment links in different contexts. Joint implementation of poverty and environment strategies may be cost-effective for some environmental problems, but independent implementation may be preferable in many cases as well. Since the search has not revealed a common nexus, the authors conclude on a cautionary note. The evidence suggests that the nexus concept can provide a useful catalyst for country-specific work, but not a general formula for program design.Publication Republic of Moldova Forest Policy Note(Washington, DC, 2014-12-19)This forest policy note (FPN) offers an outside view of the Moldovan forestry sector, provides some strategic guidance to help define sector goals, and identifies opportunities for consideration in the continued development of the sector and for the implementation of the Moldova and World Bank (WB) country partnership strategy (CPS). This study is based on a number of short visits to Moldova and on a number of background studies undertaken during the implementation of both phases of the European neighborhood and partnership instrument (ENPI) east countries, forest law enforcement and governance (FLEG) program. The WB CPS for Moldova recognizes that the forestry sector plays an important role for competitiveness and climate change but has not received the attention it deserves. This FPN builds on previous work within the forestry sector. It aims to inform the WB project formulation process and the forestry sector by reviewing the sector and highlighting the main policy issues and identifying possible actions.Publication The Republic of Armenia Climate Change and Agriculture Country Note(Washington, DC, 2012-06)This country note for Armenia is part of a series of country briefs that summarize information relevant to climate change and agriculture for three pilot countries in the Southern Caucasus Region, with a particular focus on climate and crop projections, adaptation options, policy development and institutional involvement. The note series has been developed to provide a baseline of knowledge on climate change and agriculture for the countries participating in the regional program on reducing vulnerability to climate change in Southern Caucasus Agricultural systems. This note for Armenia was shared with the government and other agricultural sector stakeholders and used as an engagement tool for a national awareness raising and consultation workshop, held in Yerevan in April 2012. Feedback and comments on the note from this consultation process have been incorporated into this updated version in collaboration with the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture.Publication Monitoring Environmental Sustainability(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-12-09)This report presents a concise review of the major environmental and natural resources issues at the global and national level over the coming two decades. The environmental issues reviewed include air pollution and deterioration of air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, water quality, scarcity and access, land and soil degradation, deforestation and forest degradation, natural disaster, loss of biodiversity and protected areas, and governance and institutions for environmental and natural resource management. Besides providing an environment outlook, the report tackles the issue of monitoring also from the supply side. It identifies the relevant data and indicator sets available at the global level and country level to capture the global and locally relevant environmental issues with the underlying objective of pinpointing at data gaps. It concludes with a set of recommendations for moving forward on the monitoring agenda. Overall, the threats from climate change caused by Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity loss, water pollution and scarcity as well as pressure on land as well as worsening ocean's state and biodiversity have to be taken under close observation in the period over the next 20 years. The environment challenges that the world faces are not trivial and some of them require immediate action. Action, in turn, requires reliable and accurate information. The second part of the report looks at information from the supply side. It identifies the relevant data and indicator sets available at the global level and country level to capture the global and locally relevant environmental issues with the underlying objective of informing and advising decision making and to identify the data gaps.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.