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World Bank on the Road to Johannesburg 2002: Making Sustainable Commitments |
Introduction
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates: Thank you for the opportunity to bring to the
attention of this important gathering the commitment
of the World Bank to contribute to the best of our ability to the work
of the Commission on Sustainable Development and the whole UN family in
preparing for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. As we
look back to Rio and ahead to Johannesburg, there are reasons for both
hope and distress. The goal of sustainable development has inspired
governments, the private sector and civil society toward a more
comprehensive, integrated, systemic approach. That approach takes a
long-term view of development and balances its different
dimensions--economic growth, social equity, and environmental
sustainability. The good news is that the general public increasingly
supports strengthened environmental management. Sample surveys around
the world, in developed and developing countries alike, show that there
is clear public consensus for stricter environmental laws and
regulations--which provides hope that stronger political leadership on
environment will emerge. A the same time, we have all learned that accepting
the principles of sustainable development is much easier than putting
them into practice. In the last decade unprecedented advances in
technology and communications have fueled growth and prosperity. But
despite the advances, we have fallen short on delivering a more
equitable and sustainable world. I'm sure you know the statistics.
Today, less than a quarter of our planet's population consumes
three-quarter of its raw material, while 2.8 billion people still live
on less than $2 a day. Across the developing world, environmental
problems are imposing severe human, economic and social costs and
threatening the foundation on which growth and, ultimately, survival
depend. Environmental degradation alone costs 4 to 8 percent of GDP
annually in many developing countries. Environmental problems undermine the quality of
life of the millions of people who depend directly on environmental and
natural resources for their livelihoods-farmers who face depleted soils
and insufficient water for irrigation, fishers who confront collapsing
fisheries, women who walk for hours to collect fuel wood. Environmental
problems also threaten the health of millions. Every year in developing
countries, an estimated 3 million people die prematurely from
water-related diseases, nearly 2 million women and children die from
exposure to indoor air pollution, and another million people die from
urban air pollution. Environmental degradation vastly increases the
vulnerability of people to natural disasters-deforestation increases the
incidence of flooding, for example, while damage to mangroves and coral
reefs reduces protection from storms. In most cases, it is the poor who
suffer the most severe consequences. It is the poor who are often forced
to live in vulnerable areas such as floodplains and drought-prone areas,
and who have limited capacity to cope when disasters occur. The
impact of environmental degradation reaches far beyond its effects today
and threatens the basis for growth and livelihoods in the future. Growth
based on depletion and degradation of the resource base, while ignoring
the interdependence of national economies, as well as the importance of
the global commons, is short-lived. In the context of globalization,
sustainable development requires integrating into the the world's
economy a set of global public goods, including biodiversity,
international waters and climate. The World Bank's New Environment Strategy: We in the World Bank recognize the need to take a
fresh look into the challenges and opportunities for sustainable
development in a rapidly changing and globally inter- dependant world.
We have prepared a new Bank-wide environment strategy with the intent to
better align work on environmental issues with our central mission of
poverty alleviation: by using either environmental interventions that
directly benefit the poor or through changes in governance and public
policies that foster sustainable economic development. This strategy
will be presented to our Board of Directors in July 2001 and will guide
our operational efforts to forge the links between sustainable
development, the environment, and poverty reduction. It focuses on
improving the quality of people's lives, improving the quality of growth
and protecting the quality of the regional and global commons, on which
life on earth depends. Going Down the Road to 2002 Mr. Chairman, Like the rest of the world, we in the World Bank
highly value the achievements of Rio. Countries, municipalities, corporations, citizens
and international organizations alike are now better equipped to assess
and address environmental constraints. We see the way forward by
deepening our commitments to Agenda 21 and aggressively turning concepts
and action plans into successful reality to help improve people's lives,
development opportunities, and prospects for a sustainable future. What does this mean for the World Bank? We stand ready to work with our clients and
partners to address core priorities for sustainable development. Key of course is reduction of poverty. An
equitable and sustainable world is a world free of poverty. We are
committed to improving environmental conditions as a means to provide
opportunities, security and empowerment to the world's poor people. We
strongly endorse the International Development Goals, supported by the
United Nations Millennium Summit, now widely accepted as key indicators
for sustainable development. The
successful pursuit of sustainable development will ultimately depend on
successfully mitigating global environmental threats the protection of
the global commons, such as climate, the diversity of life, shared water
resources. These commons are being degraded at disturbing rates
indicated by the rapid deterioration of global ecosystems. Developing
countries are most vulnerable. The World Bank is helping them to build
up adequate institutional, policy and management capacity for meaningful
strategies and actions to address key threats, and to benefit from
international cooperation and financial transfers under the global
conventions. This is being done in close collaboration with the Global ,
Environment Facility, the Montreal Protocol and bilateral donors. The Bank is also working to support good governance
and sound economic policies. Complex modern societies cannot function
effectively and sustainably in the absence of an equitable legal
framework, based on a public consensus, and a competent and impartial
civil service to administer the law. In their absence, both local and
foreign capital are unlikely to be sufficient to fund environmental
services and fuel the engine of growth. Similarly, unclear property
rights or under-priced natural resources may provide perverse economic
incentives and undermine sustainability. Beyond those core priorities, we are committed to
support financing for sustainable development in three ways-by
continuing World Bank assistance for projects with strong environmental
and social development objectives; by creating new markets that service
the needs of the environment; and by pursuing policies, regulations and
enforcement for private sector investments in environmental goods and
services. The World Banks is one of the key financiers of
environmental projects in the developing world, with a portfolio of stand-alone
environmental projects worth $5.6
billion, and additional financing for projects with environmental
objectives and components, amounting to $12.4 billion. Recently we have
expanded our efforts to include the Stockholm Convention on Persistent
Organic Pollutants, finalized in December 2000, and have reached an
agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to
strengthen our collaboration under the POPs convention. I am pleased to report to you that in the last year
we have launched two innovative initiatives aimed at protecting the
global environmental commons the Prototype Carbon Fund and the Critical
Ecosystem Partnership Fund. The Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) is
the world's first market-based mechanism to address climate change and
promote the transfer of finance and climate-friendly technology to
developing countries. The $150 million Critical Ecosystem Partnership
Fund (CEPF) a partnership between the Bank, Conservation
International and GEF -is aimed to better safeguard the world's
threatened biological hotspots in developing countries. Within the World Bank Group, the International
Finance Corporation (IFC) has an important role to promote corporate
social and environmental responsibility in support of sustainable and
equitable private sector investments in the developing world. As the
traditional balance of power between corporations and governments has
changed, business has to come to grips with new definitions of corporate
responsibility. Corporate environmental and social values have to be
redefined alongside traditional values such as profitability, and
integrated even more deeply into the heart of strategic thinking and
everyday practice. IFC operations offer global standards and best
practice for corporate environmental and social management, and promote
the globalization of social and environmental governance. As
part of the Bank's continuing commitment to understanding the key
drivers of development and appropriate development policy especially
over the medium and long term-the World Development Report 2002 called
Sustainable Development with a Dynamic Economy will address the
interaction among growth, poverty reduction, social cohesion, and the
environment. We hope the preparation of the report will contribute to a
global dialogue on social institutions and behavioral incentives.
Inherent in that is the imperative for individuals and communities to
better manage human, social, physical, and natural assets over longer
time period and rethink our basic assumptions about how we use the world
around us, and how we measure and plan economic development. The Bank is
keen to see a stronger international effort to reform the system of
national accounts and adopt more accurate measures of growth and
development. Working in partnerships Mr. Chairman, Sustainable development is inconceivable without
broad participation of responsible institutions at national, local and
international level, private sector, NGOs, academia, media etc. Bringing
all stakeholders together should be one of the key guiding principles
for the Summit of 2002. Without strong partnership, it is impossible to
expect the achievement of the new political commitment to the further
implementation of Agenda 21 and the International Development Goals.
This partnership should encompass developed and developing countries;
local, national and international levels; NGOs and governments; the UN
and the Breton Woods institutions; the public and the private sector -
everyone who calls this planet home. As we look forward to the next benchmark in the
journey to sustainable development in 2002, it is time for all of us in
the UN system, in governments, businesses, urban and rural communities,
rich and poor countries to commit to working together. We must
acknowledge the complex interrelationships among our activities, our
economies, our values, and our environment. Together we have the chance
to overcome the tremendous development challenges that we face and leave
a good place to be home to our children and grandchildren. Thank you. |