Islamabad, January 12, 2010 - The World Bank today held a consultative workshop in Islamabad to obtain views and recommendations of the key stakeholders, and to set priorities for mainstreaming environmental sustainability in the World Bank Group’s programs. Environmental sustainability is one of the three pillars of sustainable development.
“Sustainable development is the development that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable and is central to all strategies and policies leading to the ultimate goal of poverty alleviation,” said Naveed Naqvi, Acting Head of World Bank, Islamabad.
This workshop is a part of the ongoing global consultations which the Bank is undertaking to prepare its new Environment Strategy. Participants at the workshop included representatives from national and provincial governments, officials from World Bank-financed projects, civil society, NGOs, academia, think tanks, UN agencies, media and other development institutions.
The new Strategy will build upon the Bank’s first environmental strategy, titled “Making Sustainable Commitments: An Environment Strategy for the World Bank”, formulated in 2001. That Strategy outlined how the World Bank would work with the client countries to address their environmental challenges and to ensure that projects and programs integrated the principles of environmental sustainability.
Ministry of Environment (MOE) jointly with the World Bank is preparing Technical Assistance Loan (TAL) for the implementation of National Environment Policy (NEP). Through this Technical Assistance (TA), MOE would work on institutional strengthening, setting up pilots to reduce pollution load and draw out national strategy on climate change. Further Bank is helping Ministry of Industries and Production in mainstreaming environmental management with industrial processes through non-lending TA. Government of Sindh has also requested the World Bank to help in identifying environmental priorities and propose investment operations for their management.
“The Bank’s Environment Strategy, formulated in 2001 was successful in mainstreaming environment into development,” said Javaid Afzal, World Bank Sr. Environment Specialist, Islamabad. “Our new environment strategy seeks to address persistent challenges such as environmental health and pollution management, social equity, and sustainable natural resource management, as well as the growing challenges of climate change and urbanization,”
