Protesters demonstrate against the launch of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in 2007, Bali.
Original image by flickr user transnationalinstitute (Creative Commons BY-NC 2.0)
World Bank spending on forests fails to curb poverty, auditors claim
guardian.co.uk | By John Vidal
Posted: Tues Jan. 29, 2013, 2:00 PM EST
The World Bank‘s $4.1bn (£2.6bn) investments in forestry over the past 10 years have done little to reduce poverty, improve conservation, tackle climate change or benefit local communities in developing countries, a study by its own inspectors has found.
The 202-page report – a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian – was compiled by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), which consists of senior bank staff and outside consultants. The document says the bank’s financial support helped to protect 24m hectares (59m acres) of forest around the world and to classify 45m ha of forest as being on indigenous people’s land. But it says the bank mostly failed to address critical social and environmental issues.