Helping developing countries

Saturday, July 26, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

The World Bank can play a critical role in helping reduce global poverty by providing financial and technical assistance to developing countries. Backed by the United States and 184 other member nations, the bank spent slightly more than $400 billion on 6,792 projects from 1990 through last year. That gives it considerable influence on the world stage.

Yet an internal review released Tuesday suggested the bank and its affiliated institutions, already facing criticism for lending money to corruption-plagued nations, do not do a good enough job to ensure the projects they sponsor are good for the environment.

Some of this is out of the bank’s control. It often must deal with unstable governments whose leaders don’t care about dirty air and water or disappearing forests.

But the review found the bank itself has had a spotty record of environmental follow-through, particularly in Africa, India, Russia and South Asia.

Because of its influence it is vital the bank take an active leadership role on issues such as global warming, air and water pollution, deforestation and soil erosion. It must impress upon the leaders of governments it does business with that by cleaning up the environment, they can raise their nations’ standards of living.

Too often, when the bank takes environmental issues into consideration, it does so only with a specific country in mind. The review team made a sound recommendation by suggesting internal changes that would allow the bank to consider regional and global environmental ramifications when it transacts business.

Other recommendations worth adopting would be for the bank to make sure environmental issues are fully discussed by all parties involved before projects are funded and to find better ways to measure the environmental effects of its decisions.

With more international attention now given to environmental issues, the bank is certain to become a major player in those discussions because of the reach of its financial portfolio. The bank will find it can speak more authoritatively on the subject by making it a higher priority in its own business dealings.