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The World Bank Group’s mission is to reduce poverty. The Bank also works toward environmental sustainability. What’s the link between them, and does its practice on the ground promote both priorities? That’s the question posed by the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group or IEG in a recent audit of the Bank’s funding projects. The results? Disappointing. CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue speak with Vinod Thomas, Director-General of the IEG about the report. The IEG is producing a follow-up report focusing directly on the effectiveness of the the World Bank Group’s environmental and social sustainability safeguards and standards.
Environmental Sustainability: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Support
CWR Headlines:
—Russian-Georgian War Could Mean a New Cold War Between Russia and the West
—Wal-Mart Wants to Keep Green Definitions Fuzzy
Web Extra: Full interview with Peter Zeihan of Stratfor on the Russia-Georgia War
CWR ViewPoint: read
Steve Herz comments on how International Finance Corporation social standards fail to protect against human rights abuses. Herz recently co-authored a report on the human rights performance of the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standards and the Equator Principles. The analysis was conducted in partnership with the World Resources Institute, the Center for International Environmental Law, the Bank Information Center, BankTrack, and Oxfam Australia. Herz practices international, environmental, and human rights law in Oakland, CA.
Guests Marjorie Kelly and Allen White go into more depth on their efforts in Corporation2020 to redesign the corporation. They discuss the need to realign the purpose of the corporation so that it does not undermine societal well-being, and how to ensure that corporations do not undermine human rights — ending the fiction of “corporate personhood” that has enabled corporations to undermine politics and public policy. The show also includes recent success stories in Humboldt County, CA and Franklin County, PA.
Leslie Lowe, director of the Energy and Environment program for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors with more than $110 billion in assets whose members filed 3 shareholder resolutions this year at Chevron related directly or indirectly to the Ecuador environmental and human rights problems. Ms. Lowe visited the affected regions in March of this year as a member of a delegation of Chevron shareholders–including the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS–the largest US pension fund) on a fact-finding mission.