Environment

Nature provides jobs directly for hundreds of millions of people, and sustains billions more. When well-managed, nature is the foundation for sustained growth, food security, poverty reduction, and human health.

Today, nature loss, pollution, and degraded lands and seas are beginning to reverse decades of development progress. Halting this environmental degradation is essential to a world free of poverty on a livable planet.

Nature is also key to ensuring that people can lead healthy and productive lives, and that public and private resources can be invested in advancing development outcomes. The world’s ecosystems regulate the air, water, and soil on which humanity depends, and form a unique and cost-effective buffer against extreme weather events.

Investing in nature is smart development. Nature underpins people’s health, prosperity, and productivity, giving countries a powerful opportunity to drive growth and employment, develop the private sector, and empower local communities.

The World Bank Group is supporting countries to better manage their natural resources to help create jobs, improve food security, decrease pollution, and increase resilience. It currently has $14 billion in related investments, spanning all regions across the world.

Over the last decade, the World Bank Group has increased its financing for the sustainable management of forests and of marine and coastal resources. It has also worked with countries to help them reduce pollution, encourage cleaner production, and foster a circular economy. Overall, World Bank operations have helped bring over 90 million hectares of land and aquatic areas under enhanced management or conservation.

The World Bank Group is investing in projects that help countries protect their natural assets while growing and diversifying business opportunities linked to industries like nature-based tourism and aquaculture. It is also working to equip countries with evidence and data so they can make informed decisions and maximize the true value of their natural capital.

Conserving and restoring biodiversity and vital ecosystems is essential to job creation, poverty reduction, and improved health outcomes. As part of an IDA20 commitment, the Bank Group developed a methodology to track its contributions to nature and to the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework in a comprehensive way. Last fiscal year (July 1, 2024-June 30, 2025), the institution delivered $8.8 billion in nature finance. The Bank Group is also collaborating with other multilateral development banks (MDBs) and recently led the development of the MDB Common Nature Finance Taxonomy and Common Principles for Tracking Nature Finance.

Investing in nature requires a broad coalition of partners across the public and private sectors, the development community, and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. To address the global nature finance gap, the Bank is mobilizing funding from diverse sources and derisking investment for private finance, working to ensure funding gets to where it is most needed.

The World Bank Group helps countries to strengthen governance of marine and coastal resources and ensures they drive sustainable and inclusive economic growth. This commitment is anchored in the World Bank Global Blue Economy Program,  PROBLUE, a multi-donor trust fund that serves as the Bank’s flagship platform for advancing the blue economy.

Launched in 2018, the program is supported by the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well asthe European Union, with total contributions of $293 million as of December 1, 2025.

PROGREEN—a World Bank Group-led partnership and multi-donor trust fund—supports countries to invest in and sustainably manage their forests and landscapes. Active in 74 countries, the partnership is supported by Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Since 2020, PROGREEN’s supported projects have benefited 1.7 million people, brought 2 million hectares of land under enhanced conservation or management, and supported 23 countries with strengthening their landscape governance.

The Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) promotes the use of high-quality data and analysis on natural capital, ecosystem services, and sustainability to better inform decisions made by governments, the private sector, and financial institutions.

The Global Wildlife Program (GWP), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and led by the World Bank, is one of the largest global partnerships addressing wildlife poaching, trafficking, and demand.

With $352 million in GEF financing and over $2 billion in co-financing, the GWP supports national efforts in 38 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Its projects, along with a global grant, create a collaborative platform for on-the-ground action, cross-border cooperation, and the sharing of lessons and best practices.

The GWP tackles illegal wildlife trade, unsustainable wildlife trade, human-wildlife conflict, and zoonotic spillover risk while promoting wildlife-based economies and nature-based tourism.

NBS Invest is an eight-year, US$20 million Global Knowledge Platform (2023–2031), funded by the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund and implemented by the World Bank.

NBS Invest aims to increase financing for nature-based solutions and mainstream nature into development agendas across Least Developed Countries.

To create the enabling environment for the scaling up of nature-based solutions, NBS Invest develops tools and analysis, shares knowledge, and provides technical assistance to integrate NBS into World Bank investments and make a business case for further NBS uptake by the World Bank and its development partners.

Environment Contact

Melissa Bryant
mbryant@worldbankgroup.org