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Environmental Economics and Its Applications
Environmental economic tools are used to support the policy and project work of the World Bank. The unit, in collaboration with the World Bank Institute, also provides internal and external training on aspects of environmental economics.
Current projects include:
- Environmental Valuation, including the valuation of cultural heritage. This is the process of placing monetary value on environmental impacts, an essential element in incorporating the benefits and costs of environmental change into analyses of alternative programs or projects. Advice on valuation approaches and the application of environmental valuation is given to proposed Bank projects and programs.
- Innovative Financing for Sustainable Development. In partnership with UNEP and the IMF, the Bank worked on a report that served as an input to the World Summit of Sustainable Development. This report gathers best practice examples on public sector finance for environmentally sustainable development in developing countries, highlights incentive effects and impacts on the poor where appropriate, and attempts a rough scoping of the magnitude of finances which may be generated.
The Environment Department's Policy and Economics Team partners with the Research Department's Environment and Infrastructure Team (DECRG-IE) in a number of environmental economics research projects. The most recent collaborative project is an on-going study on the Costs and Benefits of Organic Agriculture in Cuba. The aim of this research project is to analyze the productivity, environmental, and health impacts of the Cuban transition from high to low agrochemical-intensive agriculture, in order to make available to World Bank's client countries the lessons from this historic experiment. The study is scheduled to be completed by March 2005.
More information on current projects can be found in the links to the left.
In addition, the "World Bank Institute's Environmental Economics and Management Program" provides further learning resources aimed at developing skills in policy formulation and analysis of policy impacts (see link below). This includes the core annual course on Environmental Economics for Development.
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