Sustainable development: an international perspective
Dr. Andrew Steer
Country Director, The World Bank, 53 Tran Phu St., Hanoi, Vietnam. Tel: 84 4 8432461. Fax: 84 4 8432471. Email: asteer@worldbank.org.
Abstract of paper presented at the conference Environmental Change and Vulnerability: Lessons from Vietnam and the Indochina Region, Hanoi, Vietnam, April 4-5th 1998.
Sixty-eight countries are currently receiving financial and technical support from the World Bank for environmental policy reforms and associated investments. A “new environmentalism” is emerging as policies are being adopted that differ from those traditionally implemented by industrial nations.
A recent review of the World Bank's environmental lending portfolio identified ten principles undergirding this new environmentalism. Although these principles may seem straightforward and uncontroversial today, a decade ago they were not.
- Principle 1: Set priorities carefully.
- Principle 2: Make every dollar count.
- Principle 3: Harness “win-win” opportunities.
- Principle 4: Use market instruments where feasible.
- Principle 5: Economize on administrative and regulatory capacity.
- Principle 6: Work with the private sector, not against it.
- Principle 7: Involve citizens thoroughly.
- Principle 8: Invest in partnerships that work.
- Principle 9: Remember that management is more important than technology.
- Principle 10: Incorporate the environment from the start.
These ten principles are helping to guide a new generation of environmental policymaking around the world. The new environmentalism — characterized by greater rigour in factoring environmental costs and benefits into policymaking — puts local people at the centre of environmental strategies, diagnoses and addresses behavioural causes of environmental damage, and recognizes the political dimensions of environmental reform.
This revolution in environmental management is not complete. Rather, it is just beginning. In most countries, environmental conditions are continuing to deteriorate, in many instances in an irreversible manner. Pursuing the new environmentalism is therefore a very urgent challenge — one that economists, as well as ecologists and technical specialists, need to be fully engaged in meeting.
Extracted from “Ten Principles of the New Environmentalism,” by Andrew Steer, Finance & Development, December 1996, 4-7.