World bank admits to failure of forest policy
Date: 28-Jan-00
Country: USA
In an unusually frank internal evaluation report, the bank admitted its
lending was flawed, failed to protect forests, failed to help the poor
and admitted that the bank's abilities to monitor the effects of its
lending was limited.
In 1991, the bank adopted a forest strategy aimed at deflecting
long-standing criticisms that the bank's activities had contributed to
the alarming pace of global deforestation.
The nearly decade-old policy charged the bank with conserving tropical
moist forests and planting trees to meet the needs of the poor. The bank
also promised to monitor the impacts of its overall lending on forests.
The report admitted that the 1991 policy was, "narrowly focused on 20
moist tropical forest countries and neglected other biodiversity-rich
forest types that are even more endangered, more important globally, or
more in need of conservation to meet the needs of the poor."
Critics inferred from the report that the bank, through its structural
adjustment loans, had vicariously contributed to deforestation.
"They have been lending massively for the same economic policies that
have been identified in the report as driving deforestation, without
paying attention to the impact they were having on forests," Korinna
Horta, an environment economist at the Environmental Defence told
Reuters.
But, World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey said the report should be
seen in a positive light since it was commissioned by President James
Wolfensohn to help him draw up a new forest strategy more in tune with
the current situation.
"The important thing is the report was called for by (Wolfensohn,) who
recognised there needed to be a change from the 1991 policy," Anstey
said. "The report concludes that the time has come for a new bank forest
policy, better attuned to the needs of developing countries and the
changing dynamic of the forest sector."
The report said that the poor were not a major source of deforestation
and illegal logging, as the bank believed in 1991, but that demand for
fuelwood for industry, timber for housing and international demand for
hardwood were the main factors destroying forests.
The World Bank has often been criticised for lending for projects such
as building dams which destroy the environment. In recent years the
bank, led by Wolfensohn, has attempted to shake off that image through a
series of alliances with environmental groups.
But despite efforts to shake its tarnished image, the bank is still
under fire. Critics have asked the bank not to fund part of the proposed
oil pipeline between Chad and Cameroon because, they claim, the project
will destroy rain forests and harm the livelihoods of people living
along its route.
Horta said that while the bank appeared to be squarely facing up to its
past failings, she remained sceptical that the bank's burgeoning
bureaucracy can improve itself.
The report also admits that the policy was only partially implemented
and that the bank failed to properly help the poor, one in four of which
live in forest areas.
"Even in countries where forest lending is large, forests and their
development are currently not an important element of the bank's
assistance strategy for poverty alleviation," the report notes.
In a particularly damning assessment, the report said that the bank's
policy's actually hampered lending which the bank should have
encouraged. The bank's "cautious approach had a chilling effect on bank
involvement in improving forest management in forest-rich countries that
wished to use their forests for economic development.
The report was written by the bank's Operations Evaluation Department,
an autonomous group which reports directly to the bank's board.
