Environment Matters 2006 – 30 Billion dollar – The Price Tag For Weak Environmental Governance
WASHINGTON, 8 November: With many developing countries losing 4 to 8 percent of GDP (nationalindkomsten) annually due to environmental degradation, strengthening the management of water, forests, fisheries, wildlife, and other natural resources is vital to these countries overall wealth, according to the World Banks annual publication, Environment Matters, released Wednesday.
Recent estimates by the World Bank reveal that corrupt and illegal practices related to logging, fisheries, and biodiversity amount to losses estimated 30 billion US dollar (175-180 milliarder DKR) per year – roughly equal to the total Bank Group commitments in 2005 (se beregningen af beløbet efter artiklen).
– The worlds population is increasing rapidly, mostly in developing countries, said Katherine Sierra, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, adding:
– With growing numbers of people comes an expanding need for basic goods and services such as water, food, energy, sanitation, housing, and transport. Meeting these needs depends on our ability to manage these resources and ecosystems in a sustainable way.
According to Environment Matters, natural resource degradation (forringelse) – such as depleted soils (udpint jord), insufficient water, rapidly disappearing forests, and collapsed fisheries – threatens the health and livelihoods of millions of people.
These problems are particularly acute in poorer countries, in which people are most dependent on their natural resource base – and where management of water, forests, fisheries, wildlife, and other resources is too often subject to weak governance.
An annual review of the World Banks environmental work, this year’s Environment Matters focuses on the challenges of promoting accountability and transparency in environmental management. It points out that factors such as climate change, invasive species, and water scarcity will increase the challenges.
Resources & Conflict
In recent years, some of the worst armed conflicts within developing countries have been connected to efforts by one group to control dwindling (svindende) environmental resources at the expense of another group.
Post-conflict countries often suffer from damaged physical infrastructure, scarce employment opportunities, reduced foreign investment, increased capital flight, and weakened governing institutions that can lead to further damage to environmental capital.
This is especially true where displaced populations are often forced to live in ecologically fragile areas. The resulting depletion (udtømmelse) of the hosts forest and water resources can instigate new conflicts between displaced populations and the local community.
Governance & Environmental Management at the World Bank
In fiscal year 2006 (July 1, 2005 – June 30, 2006), the World Bank approved 73 projects with environment and natural resources management content in 48 countries, amounting to 1,4 billion US dollar in new commitments.
Twenty-four of these new projects have objectives specifically targeting strengthening environmental policies and institutions. The total active portfolio (portefølje) with environment and natural resources management components was 9,7 billion dollar at the end of fiscal year 2006.
– The central focus of the World Banks Environment Strategy and program is to promote poverty reduction while managing this natural wealth for current and future generations, said Warren Evans, Director of the Banks Environment Department.
– In this issue of Environment Matters, the emphasis on good governance underscores our commitment to work with clients and partners on building stronger institutions and systems for greater transparency and accountability, explained he.
In support of good governance, the World Bank is:
– Working with its country partners to improve public governance capacity over environmental resources, and enhance their tools for accountability and transparency;
– Strengthening demand for better governance through institutions such as a free media, vibrant civil society, and a flourishing, competitive, and responsible private sector;
– Tightening controls for corruption in World Bank projects to ensure that resources are used for the intended purposes;
– Developing stronger collective and collaborative action with developed and developing country partners, the private sector, and civil society.
Specifically, the World Bank is tackling poor governance in the following ways:
Fisheries
– Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a global problem, with the total value of IUU catch at 9,5 billion dollar. This past year, the World Bank launched, in collaboration with donors, NGO partners, and other international organizations, a global program on sustainable fisheries – PROFISH. Good governance is at the heart of the PROFISH agenda – addressing issues of illegal fishing, corruption, and equitable access to fisheries resources.
Forestry
– The World Banks forest program is supporting regional forest governance activities to curb illegal logging and support the development of a more level playing field among legitimate forest operators. The World Bank estimates the market value of global annual losses from illegal cutting of forests in public lands at over 10 billion dollar – more than eight times the total official development assistance flows for the sustainable management of forests.
And about 5 billion dollar per year is estimated to be lost due to uncollected taxes and royalties on legally sanctioned timber harvests due to corruption.
Water Resources Management
– In water resources management and the delivery of water services, governance rests on two core values: inclusiveness – ensuring that all members of the affected group receive equal treatment – and accountability – ensuring that those in authority answer to the group they serve if things to wrong, and are credited when things go well.
For water resource management, governance processes determine decision making about water storage, types of water use, regulation of extraction from aquifers (underjordiske vandlag), regulation of discharges, and allocation (fordeling) between competing uses, including allocations to maintain basic environmental services.
Natural Resources and Institutional Quality
– In low-income countries, the natural capital share (26 percent) of total wealth is much greater than the share of produced capital (16 percent). Achieving sustained growth entails managing a complex portfolio of assets, in which the elements are not just buildings and machines, but natural and human resources as well. If managed properly, natural resources will yield rents that can be an important source of development finance.
The publication concludes that the poor are fundamentally dependent on the health of their environment, and managing natural resources is vital to fighting poverty in developing countries. A major challenge is in recognizing – and accounting for – these environmental benefits and costs, including resource depletion and population growth.
For more information, see the website:
www.worldbank.org/environmentmatters
Regnestykket for de 30 milliarder dollar:
World Bank estimates that
– losses from illegal logging and failure to collect appropriate taxes from legal forest operations amount to 15-20 billion dollar per year;
– high Seas Task Force estimates illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing at 9 billion dollar per year (Closing the Net: Stopping Illegal Fishing on the High Seas, March 2006); and
– Interpol estimates that illegal trade in wildlife products amounts to 6-10 billion dollar per year (16th Meeting of the Interpol Working Group on Wildlife Crime, October 2003).
Kilde: Verdensbankens website
