22 July 2008: The Independent Evaluation Group, an
independent unit within the World Bank that reports directly to the Bank’s
Board of Executive Directors, has released its report evaluating
the effectiveness of World Bank Group (WBG) support to the environment from
1990 to 2007.

The Report recommends that the
WBG increase attention to environmental sustainability by ensuring that
environmental issues enter fully into discussions of its strategic directions
and in regional and country assistance programs. The report ‘Environmental
Sustainability: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Support’ notes the WBG is now
the largest multilateral source of environment-related financing, including the
administration of Global Environment Facility grants, and an important source
of advice to many country and private sector clients. Among its findings, the Independent
Evaluation Group highlighted insufficient attention to longer-term sustainable
development, and the need to put in place more adequate systems to monitor
environmental outcomes and to assess impacts across the World Bank, International
Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
The assessment relied significantly on country case studies, undertaken in
2006, to explore the influence of various instruments on the environment. Other
recommendations suggest the WBG should: move to more cross-sectoral and
spatially oriented approaches to environmental support and strengthen staff
skills; improve the Bank Group’s ability to assess its support for the
environment and to monitor and evaluate the impacts of its environment-related
interventions; and improve coordination among the Bank, IFC and MIGA, and between
the World Bank Group and external partners (both public and private) ensuring
consistent and effective implementation at the corporate and country levels. [Environmental Sustainability; An
Evaluation of the World Bank Group]