Integrating Landscape, Seascape, and Natural Capital Approaches for People, Planet, and Prosperity

Overview

The world is facing the triple crises of climate change, nature loss, and pollution—which disproportionately impact low-income countries. Placing nature at the core of development efforts across sectors can avert risks and is essential to ending poverty on a livable planet.

The World Bank’s Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy (ENB) Global Practice leverages partnerships to promote a land-to-sea approach to development, which integrates sustainable natural resource management approaches across the landscape, seascape, nature, and biodiversity agendas. This approach is supported by the three strategic ENB Trust Funds – PROGREEN, PROBLUE, and the Global Program on Sustainability (GPS). These funds provide countries with data, tools, knowledge, capacity building, technical assistance grants, and investments (in the case of PROBLUE)—and strive to respond to nature, climate, economy, and livelihood needs of country clients.

PROGREEN, PROBLUE, and GPS are accelerators that gain and add value by focusing on key issues of nature and finance, building on the Bank’s country engagement model, blended finance approaches, efficient operating models, and ability to engage upstream at the policy level and downstream at the investment and implementation level. Through their areas of focus, the three funds support investments through the provision of better data, analytics, and knowledge. These Trust Funds have also been increasingly strengthening synergies to scale-up impact in the face of increased interconnected global challenges.

Trust Fund initiatives can also better leverage larger country programs through linkages with World Bank investments. PROBLUE and GPS leverage respective strengths to enhance understanding around the value and contribution of a country's marine and coastal environmental assets to economic growth. GPS complements PROBLUE’s work by helping countries integrate the diverse economic value of natural capital and sustainability considerations into policies and decision-making by providing high-quality data, natural capital accounts, and analytics on coastal and marine natural capital, in addition to analyzing the corresponding risks and opportunities for the development process.

PROGREEN also collaborates closely with both PROBLUE and GPS to maximize impact. PROGREEN’s integrated landscape approach complements PROBLUE’s efforts in coastal and marine resource management, enhancing the sustainability of interventions from land to sea. This synergy ensures comprehensive solutions to deforestation, landscape degradation, and declining biodiversity. Similarly, PROGREEN and GPS work together to integrate natural capital considerations into landscape management. By combining PROGREEN’s on-the-ground experience with GPS’s data and analytics, they help countries incorporate the diverse economic values of natural capital into their policies and decision-making processes.

The operating synergies between PROGREEN, PROBLUE, and GPS can be found below.

Examples of collaboration:

• In June 2023, PROGREEN collaborated with PROBLUE and the GPS to develop and deliver the joint technical meeting and site visit with development partners in Ghana. This was a key opportunity to showcase the technical activities and achievements of the multi-trust fund support in an advanced country program and to discuss and prioritize opportunities for deepening collaboration. Ghana is a leading country in Africa addressing environmental issues with large investments and strategic support from the environmental TFs. The TFs developed several communications products to showcase the impact on the ground. Check out this PROBLUE-supported video Protecting Biodiversity in Ghana’s Wetlands: Planning, Land Titling, and Ecosystem Restoration which was launched on World Biodiversity Day on May 22, 2024.
• Nature-based solutions (NbS) invest is collaborating with PROGREEN, PROBLUE, and GPNBS (Global Program on Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Resilience) to disseminate knowledge, enhance capacity, and share best practices. NbS Invest is a US$10 million project funded by the Global Environment Facility through its Least Developed Countries Fund and implemented by the World Bank. The NbS Invest project can provide technical and financial support to the International Development Association (IDA) pipeline to identify and design NbS opportunities in projects in the priority sectors: environment, water, urban, agriculture, transport, and energy. NbS Invest can draw on and disseminate PROGREEN’s knowledge products and training resources to accelerate knowledge exchange for technical staff, government officials, and other relevant partners and stakeholders, increasing financial flows and investments in target countries.
• In 2022, PROBLUE and GPS collaborated to develop a Plastic Policy Simulator (PPS) which is a techno-financial/fiscal model for quantitative analysis of the impacts of specific plastic policy instruments. Initial funding for PPS was provided by PROBLUE. GPS resources contributed especially to the stage of piloting the application of the PPS to fiscal policy dialogues for plastic circularity and pollution reduction at the country level.
• In fiscal year 2023, a new project was approved to generate data on South Sudan’s forests and wildlife sectors to inform government policies and World Bank operations in the country. The project aimed to assess existing forest resources and development potential, including protected areas and wildlife, by updating existing remote-sensing data and resource maps. Co-financing from PROBLUE improved knowledge about fisheries and wetlands-based livelihoods in the country.
• GPS and PROGREEN are collaborating to design a series of training sessions on watershed and landscape-scale approaches and ecosystem service modeling to target investments in infrastructure, agriculture, ecosystem conservation, and restoration. Watershed or landscape-scale approaches to targeting investments have been recognized as a way of achieving a balance among multiple development objectives in several sectors, including infrastructure and agriculture. However, there are gaps in the capacity of developing countries (including World Bank borrowers) to use such tools to inform project design. These training sessions are aimed to bridge this critical gap in capacity development.
• In 2021, PROBLUE collaborated with PROGREEN along with other partners to launch the "Banking on Protected Areas: Promoting Sustainable Protected Area Tourism to Benefit Local Economies” report. This publication estimates the economic impact of tourism in protected areas on local economies and makes the case that the promotion of sustainable tourism in protected areas should be actively included in COVID-19 economic recovery plans, an investment that would provide jobs and support economic development while also protecting biodiversity which is being lost at a rapid rate globally.
• PROBLUE and PROGREEN are co-financing the advisory services and analytics for the “Global-Integrating Aquaculture into Land and Seascape Programs.” This work aims to enhance the awareness, knowledge, and capacity of land and seascape practitioners to better integrate aquaculture into landscape and seascape programs for improved system resilience, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.

The Global Partnership for Sustainable and Resilient Landscapes (PROGREEN) supports rural livelihood development and landscape restoration while addressing declining biodiversity, forest loss, and deteriorating land fertility.

As a World Bank administered Multi-Donor Trust Fund, PROGREEN provides tools and knowledge to support countries’ efforts to reduce poverty while tackling deforestation and landscape degradation, and increasing risks exacerbated by a changing climate, such as uncontrolled forest fires and drought.

Healthy forests and land-based ecosystems are essential to life on Earth. Ecosystem services—such as water cycle regulation, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity habitat—sustain livelihoods by providing food, fuel, shelter, and jobs. Forests and landscapes, however, are under significant and increasing threat. Unsustainable resource management is leading to deforestation and land degradation driven by land conversion for agriculture, infrastructure, mining, and other such activities. This loss is impacting economies and environments around the world, most notably in rural areas, where 78 percent of the world’s poor live.

Through an integrated landscape approach, PROGREEN is helping regions and countries reverse these trends and meet their national and global sustainable development goals and commitments in a cost-effective manner.

Through country programs and knowledge activities, PROGREEN grants deepen impact and embed sustainable landscape management approaches in government policies and rural land management practices. Its programs support analytics, knowledge development, and capacity-building to advance country engagements with the aim of scaling up landscape restoration and contributing to global dialogues on issues relating to forests, nature, and biodiversity. PROGREEN grants also contribute to participatory processes that draw on data by supporting the gathering of evidence and development of tools that serve to help build consensus on the need for action, policy change, and investment.

Related:

• Feature Story: Supporting Land Tenure in East Asia
• Campaign: Forests For Us
• Brief: PROGREEN and the Global Biodiversity Framework

PROBLUE is a Multi-Donor Trust Fund, housed at the World Bank, that supports the development of integrated, sustainable, and healthy marine and coastal resources. PROBLUE contributes to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) and is fully aligned with the World Bank’s vision to create a world free of poverty on a livable planet.

PROBLUE supports work in every World Bank region of the world. This includes cross-sectoral initiatives and global activities. As of June 30, 2023, PROBLUE has increased its overall portfolio of technical activities to $144 million in support of 181 activities in 80 economies.

PROBLUE supports the World Bank’s overall ocean portfolio and focuses on the following four pillars:

Pillar 1: Improved Fisheries and Aquaculture Governance

The overall objective of Pillar 1 is to improve fisheries governance. Activities are divided into two broad categories:

• Reducing overexploitation of capture fisheries, including by improving transparency, governance, and reducing the impact of harmful fisheries subsidies;
• Improving aquaculture, including by increasing biosecurity to prevent disease, and supporting new development models in aquaculture.

Pillar 2: Marine Litter and Pollution Management

The overall objective of Pillar 2 is the prevention of marine pollution and litter. This requires new policies, changes from consumers and industries, investments, innovations, and private sector interventions. Pillar 2 is prioritizing activities that prevent marine plastics, including:

• Improving solid waste management to stop leakages;
• Transitioning to a more circular economy, in which products are designed for reuse and recycling, making waste more valuable;
• Reducing the upstream production and use of plastics.

Pillar 3: Innovation and the Blueing of Traditional Sectors

The overall objective of Pillar 3 is the “blueing” of oceanic sectors, to be achieved by supporting more sustainable development of both:

• Traditional maritime activities: e.g. shipping and ports, and tourism;
• More innovative uses: e.g. offshore wind and desalination.

Pilar 4: Integrated Seascape Approach

The overall objective of Pillar 4 is to strengthen integrated and sustainable management of coastal and marine areas. This involves:

• Strengthening government capacity to value and conserve blue natural capital;
• Exploring innovative financing to support the Blue Economy;
• Developing Blue Economy Development Framework (BEDF) analytical tools including a blue carbon approach;
• Promoting the use of nature-based solutions such as mangroves to boost costal resilience.

Cross-cutting issues such as poverty; livelihoods; social inclusion, including gender; climate change; and maximizing finance for development are interwoven throughout the program.

Related:

• PROBLUE Impact Stories: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/problue/knowledge-and-resources
• Unlocking Blue Carbon Development: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/unlocking-blue-carbon-development
• Tangled Seas: A Snapshot of Abandoned, Lost, or Otherwise Discarded Fishing Gear in South Asia: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/281dcd5f-90f1-4514-b6c6-07f8c45de48e
• Global Seaweed New and Emerging Markets Report 2023: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/environment/publication/global-seaweed-new-and-emerging-markets-report-2023
• WACA Impact Stories: https://www.wacaprogram.org/impact-stories?cid=afw_tt_wbafrica_en_ext&cid=afw_tt_wbafrica_en_ext
• World Bank Group and the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution Process: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/environment/brief/world-bank-group-and-the-intergovernmental-negotiating-committee-on-plastic-pollution-process#1

The Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) is a World Bank-led Umbrella Program that aims to integrate sustainability considerations into policies and decision making through the provision of data, metrics and tools.

GPS engages with 25 countries by supporting efforts to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into investment and policy decisions. GPS also helps inform the design and implementation of World Bank projects in core implementing countries, including Ghana, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria and Türkiye.

GPS is structured around three core pillars:

Pillar 1: Global Data and Analytics: under this pillar, GPS supports global data and analytical products and approaches for the measurement and valuation of natural capital and ecosystem services.

Pillar 2: Country and Regional Level Support: working in 25 countries, GPS supports the production and use of data and analysis on natural capital and ecosystem services.

Pillar 3: Sustainable Finance: GPS conducts research and develops data and tools that help to better integrate environmental criteria, including the value of nature, into financial markets.

GPS builds on nearly a decade of experience from the Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES), a global partnership that piloted the development of natural capital accounts and their use for policy purposes in twelve countries from 2012-2020. To date, WAVES, WAVES plus and GPS have helped over 40 countries measure and value natural capital and ecosystem services and integrate sustainability into development, informing various policy and investment decisions around the world.

GPS data and analysis have been widely used and quoted, including in the highly influential Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity, and financial sector data and product providers have incorporated GPS analysis and recommendations into their offerings. GPS has also contributed to the global dialogue leading up to COP-15 and the Global Biodiversity Framework, the on-going development of the Biodiversity Pledge and Nature Action 100+ investor engagement approach and the Sovereign ESG Data Portal.

Related:

• Sovereign ESG Data Portal
• Blog: Accounting for the diverse values of nature to inform biodiversity policies
• WAVES Close out report
• WAVES Partnership
• Ghana webinar: October 26 Strengthening the Capacity for Measuring and Valuing Natural Capital in Ghana Description and Speakers, Presentation, Seminar Recording