World Bank Finds Itself Wanting

		<a href='http://ads.truthdig.com/banners/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9cd87eb&cb=477012939' target='_blank'><img src='http://ads.truthdig.com/banners/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=1&cb=477012939&n=a9cd87eb' border='0' alt='' /></a>	February 16, 2012 Log in / Register
			Text Size

Past Events Upcoming Events

Apple's China Comes Home to Haunt Us

'Losing' the World: American Decline in Perspective, Part 1

The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective, Part 2

'Colbert Report': Contraception Crusade

Will Catholic Bishops and the Religious Right Save Obama?

What’s Really at Stake in 2012
By Bill Boyarsky

The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective, Part 2
By Noam Chomsky, TomDispatch

Apple’s China Comes Home to Haunt Us
By Robert Scheer

Will Catholic Bishops and the Religious Right Save Obama?
By Joe Conason

Gay Marriage Bill Awaits Governor’s Call in N.J.

Target Knows Your Secrets

OWS Might Get a Super PAC

Gore: End Quarterly Reporting, Save the World

Russian Authorities Aren’t Toying Around

Consumer Agency Puts Debt, Credit Companies on Notice

Putin on Trial ... Almost

‘Colbert Report’: Contraception Crusade

Boehner: Time to Stop Playing ‘Political Games’ With the Tax Cut Bill

‘Freedom Watch’ Goes Dark

Whither ‘Colbert Report’?

Herman Cain Will Not Dance With the Stars

Giving Famous Nudes the Photoshop Treatment

Hollywood Republicans: Rare, but Still There

The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t Asking

Dig led by Mike Rose

Financial Meltdown 101

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig

Drawing the Line: The Collected Works of America’s Premier Political Cartoonist

By Paul Conrad

World Bank Finds Itself Wanting

namtheun2.com

The World Bank funded the Nam Theun II hydroelectric dam in Laos despite global environmental protests. The project uprooted 6,200 villagers and will have profound effects on downstream fisheries and biodiversity.

The World Bank is being criticized for a persistent lack of environmental focus in an internal review of its lending activities. The new report rails against the environmental degradation caused by many bank-funded projects in poor countries that harm local communities in the name of “development.”

Read the report at worldbank.org/oed.

The New York Times:

The World Bank and its partners need to do a far better job of considering the environmental effects of projects they finance in poor countries, its internal review group concludes in a new report.

The review, released Tuesday, examined some of the $400 billion in investments in nearly 7,000 projects from 1990 to 2007. It found that recent pledges for environmental sustainability by the bank and sister institutions, including the International Finance Corporation, were often not put into practice when dollars were turned into dams, pipelines, palm plantations and the like.

The authors of the 181-page environmental report, the first by the bank’s Independent Evaluation Group since 2002, said it was crucial for the bank and its partners to intensify their focus on measurable environmental protection, given rising vulnerability to environmental risks and the increasing flow of financing for projects related to climate change.

Read more

More Below the Ad