Current Initiatives
The Policy and Economics Team has been leading the work at The World Bank on Indicators. This section introduces many of the environmental indicator initiatives within the Bank.
Mapping the Global Environment. Interactive maps that illustrate new international estimates of pollution damage, natural resource degradation, genuine savings (now known as adjusted net savings), pressure on water resources, threats to biodiversity, and World Bank project responses.
The Little Green Data Book. Presents key indicators of the environment and its relationship to people and the economy for more than 200 countries.
Adjusted Net Saving. (formerly called genuine saving) is a sustainability indicator building on the concepts of green national accounts. Adjusted net savings measure the true rate of savings in an economy after taking into account investments in human capital, depletion of natural resources and damage caused by pollution.
Wealth Estimates. Another type of green accounting is the World Bank's analysis of estimates of the wealth of nations which explores the composition of wealth at a point in time (largely for the year 1994).
Country Assistance Strategies and the Environment. The Environment Department at the World Bank is charged with the responsibility of integrating environmental issues into the Bank's Country Assistance Strategies (CASs). A list of environmental indicators is proposed to be included in the CASs.
Poverty-Environment. Indicators are an important tool for designing and evaluating poverty reduction strategies, projects, and outcomes. Several resources are available to aid in the design of poverty-environment indicators.
Project Indicators-on-the-web. is a project whereby World Bank task managers will be able to get ideas for environmental performance indicators at the project and national level. Different sectors and cross-cutting issues (e.g. institutional issues) are represented.
Indicators of Rural Sustainability. The World Bank together with UNEP and CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) developed, tested and refined indicators and information tools in an user-friendly geographic information system (GIS) interface, for integrating rural sustainability considerations into policy-making and planning and improve environmental management at different scales in Central America countries.
Monitoring Natural Resources: Costa Rica. The development of a policy relevant monitoring system for natural resources, which uses a watershed in Costa Rica as a case study.
Forest Management Indicators: Thailand. A report on the criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management has been published by the Danish Centre for Forest, Landscape and Planning titled "For Whom and For What? Principles, Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Resources Management in Thailand". This work was supported by the World Bank's Trust Fund for Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Development with funds from Danida.