Environment

Natural resources provide jobs for hundreds of millions of people, and sustains billions more. When managed well, renewable natural resources, watersheds, productive landscapes, and seascapes provide the foundation for sustained inclusive growth, food security, poverty reduction, and human wellbeing.

The triple environmental crises of climate change, nature loss, and pollution are already beginning to reverse decades of development progress in some countries, and slow progress in others. Economic development and growth can no longer happen at the expense of the planet’s natural capital. Addressing the drivers of environmental degradation and the loss of nature is essential to ending poverty on a livable planet. 

A healthy environment is also key to ensure that people can lead healthy and productive lives, and that public and private resources can be invested in advancing development instead of remediating pollution. The world’s ecosystems further regulate the air, water, and soil on which we all depend, and form a unique and cost-effective buffer against extreme weather events and climate change.

Achieving sustainable growth requires better integrating environment, climate, and development actions, as highlighted in recent global commitments, including the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) approved in December 2022 at COP15. To make this happen, countries need better natural resource management, environmentally friendly fiscal policies, greener financial markets, and effective waste management programs.

In particular, the nature and climate change agendas are complementary and there are synergies to be exploited to foster green, resilient, and inclusive development. The benefits of nature-smart policy increase substantially when the carbon sequestration services of nature are factored in.  

Additional attention is needed to ensure nature becomes an engine for economic and social development. Investing in nature drives economic recovery by creating jobs, targeting the poorest communities, and building long-term resilience.

Last Updated: Sep 15,2023

Whether protecting the world’s forests, financing access to electricity for school children in rural areas or investing in mass transit infrastructure to create more livable cities, we view development in all sectors through the lens of social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

The World Bank’s Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice is at the heart of the World Bank’s poverty and sustainability agenda. It builds on 30+ years of experience to provide analytics, finance, and expertise to low- and middle-income countries to better integrate nature, climate, and development. It supports countries better manage terrestrial and aquatic natural resources in a sustainable way to help create jobs, improve livelihoods, enhance ecosystem services, decrease pollution, and increase resilience to climate change, setting them on a trajectory for greener, more inclusive, and more resilient development.

As of September 2023, the World Bank has an environment portfolio of 139 projects worth $15.35 billion. Over the last decade, the World Bank has emerged as one of the leading multilateral financiers for protecting biodiversity, supporting sustainable forest management and good stewardship of our oceans, and combating wildlife crime. The World Bank has also been a major source of funding, technical assistance, and knowledge to help countries reduce pollution, implement proper waste management, improve water and air quality, and promote clean development for healthier lives and better economic outcomes. 

The World Bank supports informed decision-making through analysis and using methodologies such as environmental economics and natural capital accounting. Countries are in a better position to seize growth opportunities, weigh pollution costs and climate risks, and identify synergies when they understand the repercussions of policy and investment choices and are equipped with evidence and data.

The World Bank’s Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy Global Practice also works closely with other Bank units to mainstream nature across the WBG’s work, including as part of IDA and Climate Change Action Plan commitments. It also makes sure that investment projects throughout the Bank are guided by the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework (ESF).

Last Updated: Sep 15,2023

In India, the World Bank is strengthening Kerala’s resilience against natural disasters, climate change impacts, disease outbreaks, and pandemics. The state has suffered multiple landslides and floods over the past decade. The 2018 monsoons - the worst in a century – triggered devastating floods and landslides, affecting over 5.4 million people, displacing 1.4 million, and resulting in financial losses of US$3.74 billion. A state level programmatic series of World Bank operations has since supported cross-sectoral investments in Kerala’s resilience, recovery, and rebuilding, including after the COVID-19 pandemic. The current phase – the Resilient Kerala Program, is investing US$125 million in embedding resilience in key economic sectors, including through integrated and sustainable water and land management, and a shift to climate-smart agriculture. It also supports the establishment of an IT-enabled One Health platform that will strengthen coordination, joint surveillance, and preparedness to counter future zoonotic disease outbreaks.

In Rwanda, the World Bank is helping the municipal government in the city of Kigali integrate ecosystem services into urban planning, through technical assistance to develop a comprehensive, evidence-based stormwater management master plan, and through investments in integrated ‘gray’ and ‘green’ infrastructure solutions that reduce runoff along human settlements and restore the flood attenuation capacity and water quality of the wetlands. With support of a grant from the Global Environment Facility (FED), wetland restoration is being piloted on 194 hectares, and is expected to improve climate resilience and urban livelihoods for more than 250,000 people exposed to increasingly frequent flood events.

As part of the GEF-funded, World Bank-led Global Wildlife Program covering Africa, Asia and Latin America, 19 countries across Africa are working together to combat the illegal wildlife trade – widely reported as the world’s fourth largest crime. The program is designed to work across wildlife trafficking chains from source to demand, in parallel with promoting wildlife-based economies that benefit local communities. Through efforts to halt poaching, address human wildlife conflict, scale up sustainable land and forest management, and develop nature-based tourism, World Bank projects in Chad, Gabon, Malawi, the Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Zambia are protecting flagship species such as elephants and rhino, improving the management of 9.5 million hectares, restoring over 100,000 hectares, and benefitting 680,000 people through diversified and resilient livelihoods that are consistent with wildlife conservation.

The World Bank is helping Morocco realize the full potential of its rich blue assets in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, which contribute substantially to GDP and jobs in the country, and are essential to attaining a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive economy as part of COVID recovery efforts. The WBG supports institutional frameworks and coordination amongst multiple ministries and provides targeted investments to strengthen two key blue sectors - tourism and fisheries. The project promotes climate-resilient and sustainable integrated management to restore 78,270 hectares of marine and coastal areas, with a focus on creating jobs and improving biodiversity management in seven selected sites. Notably, it will also promote Moroccan tourism through better environmental monitoring and protection of its beaches, inter alia. These efforts build upon the recently-adopted legal framework for integrated coastal zones management, and support the WBG Climate Change Action Plan (2021–2025) to ensure a coherent approach in aligning the country’s development and climate change goals.

In Vietnam, the World Bank has finalized and launched the Plastics Pollution Diagnostics report, which identified the top 10 most common plastic items in river and coastal sites in Vietnam. This strengthened the government’s understanding of key sources of land-based plastic pollution to inform the implementation of their National Action Plan on the Management of Marine Plastic Litter. A related report, Toward a National Single-use Plastics Roadmap in Vietnam, proposes a gradual effort to combat this pollution through a mix of policy instruments. The World Bank has also provided analytical support to improve marine plastic waste management in Vietnam’s fisheries sector. Furthermore, a joint World Bank and IFC team paved the way for private sector solutions in plastics recycling via value-chain diagnostics and public-private dialogue, and ultimately catalyze investments. The World Bank is undertaking a mid-to-long term programmatic engagement to support Vietnam to move towards a modern, integrated, and sustainable solid waste management system at affordable costs.

Last Updated: Sep 15,2023

Multi-stakeholder partnerships are a critical aspect of World Bank engagement on the environment, pooling expertise, access, and resources. These partnerships comprise public sector, private sector, multi-lateral, and civil society actors to advance collective action on some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

The PROBLUE program, administered by the World Bank, supports the sustainable and integrated development of marine and coastal resources in healthy oceans. PROBLUE is part of the World Bank’s overall oceans program. PROBLUE focuses on four key areas: sustainable fisheries and aquaculture; marine pollution, including litter and plastics; oceanic sectors such as tourism, maritime transport and offshore renewable energy; and the building of government capacity to manage marine resources, including nature-based solutions, and to mobilize private sector finance.

PROGREEN—the Global Partnership for Sustainable and Resilient Landscapes—is a World Bank-administered Umbrella Multi-Donor Program that supports countries to invest in forests and landscapes to improve livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation and adaptation in an integrated and cost-effective manner.

The Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) is helping countries build natural capital estimates into their national planning; providing data and analysis for improved economic and sector policy decisions, and supporting greening of the financial sector. GPS builds on a decade of experience from the Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) partnership, which worked with over 20 countries to build natural capital accounts and use them in development decisions.

The Global Wildlife Program (GWP) is a $230 million grant program launched in 2015 with projects across 31 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The program focuses on designing and implementing national strategies to help countries combat illegal wildlife trafficking, secure wildlife habitats, and promote wildlife-based economies.

The International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) launched in 2010 brings together INTERPOL, the CITES Secretariat, World Customs Organization and UNODC with the World Bank in a coordinated global response to wildlife crime. ICCWC helps strengthen national law enforcement and criminal justice systems and international coordination in support of sustainable development and equitable benefit-sharing of the proceeds from sustainable natural resource management. The Consortium has developed a Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit and Indicator Framework that have been applied in over 28 countries to assess and strengthen wildlife crime responses and prevention strategies. Within ICCWC, the World Bank provides technical assistance on anti-money laundering and prevention of illicit financial flows and has a strategic role by being able to elevate the environmental and wildlife crime agenda with key stakeholders at a national level. Read ICCWC Vision 2030 here.

The World Bank also leads the GEF-funded Amazon Sustainable Landscape Program (ASL),  which is improving integrated landscape management and ecosystem conservation in seven Amazon countries. To date, it has helped expand and strengthen the management of 42 million hectares of protected areas, promoted sustainable practices in 209 thousand hectares, and restored 4,300 hectares.

Last Updated: Sep 15,2023