World Bank plants seeds for new forest policy

After 10 years of granting loans to Cameroon, the World Bank has not been able to change the country's rapid destruction of forests.

February 2, 2000
Web posted at: 3:01 PM EST (2001 GMT)

By Environmental News Network staff

The World Bank has admitted that its approach to forest issues is flawed following a report last week on the accomplishments of its 10-year-old forest strategy.

The candid internal evaluation, commissioned by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, found that the 1991 forest strategy was poorly implemented and needs to adapt to the changing forest sector and the aspirations of developing countries. In particular, the strategy's strict bias toward conservation of existing forests was found to discourage creative experimentation and partnerships between the private sector and local communities.

"The bank's strategy was quite successful in reorienting lending toward conservation and in ensuring that the Hippocratic oath of 'doing no harm' in the anti-logging policy was duly observed in the design and implementation of bank-financed projects," said Uma Lele, who headed the evaluation team in the bank's independent Operations Evaluation Department. "However, it also discouraged creative experimentation and partnerships with the private sector and local c

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ommunities,"

The analysis was discussed during a two-day World Bank workshop that included forestry experts, environmental activists, industry representatives and government policy-makers who were asked to contribute ideas to a new forest policy.

"The OED forestry analysis illustrates that donor policies need to be more flexible if they are to promote the right balance between prudence and results for optimal development impact, " said OED Director-General Bob Picciotto, who headed the evaluation team.

The review looked at forest operations in three forest-rich countries (Brazil, Cameroon and Indonesia) and three forest-poor countries (China, Costa Rica and India).

For the most part, World Bank involvement was highly beneficial in forest-poor countries where it promoted regeneration and tree planting and helped meet the basic needs of the poor through production forestry. Nevertheless, the bank claims that its conservative strategy inhibited a fruitful dialogue with officials in forest-rich countries.

Indonesia is an example of a forest-rich country where World Bank has inhibited communication between local communities and the private sector.

Changes in the global economic environment, such as the growing demand for wood products, weak forest protection mechanisms in developing countries and stagnant aid flows, have changed the realities under which the World Bank operates, according to the report.

Environmentalists have blamed the World Bank for using public money to support ill-conceived development efforts around the world — efforts that, they say, frequently ravaged unique ecosystems and harmed the very communities they were intended to help.

"This is one of the most important documents on forest policy the bank has issued in a decade," said Korinna Horta, a senior economist at Environmental Defense. "It shows the bank has failed to comply with its own 1991 forest policy to protect the world's forests and alleviate poverty."

"The recognition that some economic policies promoting globalization and corruption are causing deforestation presents a welcome and fundamental shift away from the World Bank's previous thinking, which pointed to poor people in developing countries as the main culprits," said Horta. "Unfortunately, the majority of the World Bank's own lending consists of structural-adjustment loans that promote the very economic policies that were identified by the bank's evaluation report as driving forces of deforestation."

In the developing world, 20 million hectares of forest disappear each year and tropical moist forests are shrinking fast. One out of four of the world's poor depend directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihood. Biodiversity, climate change and protection of indigenous peoples depend on effective protection and management of forest resources.

A revised forest protection strategy is under preparation by the World Bank.

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SFCW - Sustainable Forestry & Certification Watch

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