World Bank struggles to prioritize sustainability.

• Author: Block, Ben
• Position: EYE ON EARTH - Brief article

World Bank investment projects fail to dedicate sufficient attention to longterm sustainability, an internal review said in July. Although the Bank has strengthened its focus on mitigating environmental degradation and climate change in recent years, it "needs to improve monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of environmental aspects and results of lending operations at both the project and portfolio levels," the assessment said.

The report, from the Bank's Independent Evaluation Group, focused on case studies from nine countries that receive nearly half the institution's environmental investments. It found that while the Bank has succeeded in helping countries set their environmental priorities, it often struggles to address these issues adequately through its lending.

The evaluation also compared project success rates across regions and issues, from 1990 to 2007. Europe and Central Asia had the highest rating of satisfactory projects, at 85 percent. Sub...