The Millennium Development Goal on environment sustainability covers a wide range of issues and themes. Previous work by DDVE and the World Bank on faith and environmental sustainability is available on this website as DDVE Study 2003-2 and DDVE Study 2006-2. DDVE’s current work in this area is focused on the issue of access to and affordability of basic infrastructure, as well as on limited work related to climate change in the context of the upcoming World Development report on Climate Change. As in other areas, DDVE’s work aims to document some of the difficult ethical and distributional trade-offs faced by governments when implementing policies related to basic infrastructure services, including for example setting residential tariffs and subsidies for water and subsidies. We also try to analyze the role of faith-based organizations in contributing to environmental sustainability. On climate change, DDVE has supported several dialogues with faith leaders in tandem with the World Bank’s Environment team, and is contributing to the upcoming World Development Report on this topic. Finally, DDVE is collaborating with the World Faiths Development Dialogue on a study on the role of FBOs in improving shelter for the poor.
- Access to and affordability of basic infrastructure services: DDVE’s work in this area has initially focused on Africa, with a number of outputs including DDVE Study 2008-2 on Access and Affordability of Modern Infrastructure Services in Africa, as well as DDVE Working Papers 2009-2 and 2009-3. Additional studies on Water Tariffs and Subsidies in sub-Saharan Africa, Electricity tariffs and Subsidies in sub-Saharan Africa, and Infrastructure, Poverty and Gender in sub-Saharan Africa are being finalized. Based on this work, DDVE is co-authoring the chapter on infrastructure and poverty for the upcoming Africa Region flagship report on infrastructure. Recently, DDVE started to lead a similar work program on South Asia at the request of and in collaboration with the Region’s Sustainable Development Department. Selected additional case studies are also being conducted for North Africa and the Middle East, and for Latin America.
- FBOs and shelter: In December 2006, the World Faiths Development Dialogue, DDVE, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center, and Habitat for Humanity International convened a meeting of faith-based and mainstream development practitioners to examine the intersections of faith and shelter. The meeting explored shared concerns on pressing needs surrounding decent shelter, from water and sanitation to productive employment. Participants agreed to pursue an exploratory “mapping” of activities by faith-based organizations to promote decent shelter to better inform development practice, clarify common concerns, promote complementarities and strategic partnerships, and identify critical gaps to be filled in support of local practitioners. Preliminary results from this work were discussed in October 2008 and plans are being considered to conduct additional work among others for the July 2009 Meeting.
- World Development Report on Climate Change: DDVE is working with staff from the Finance and Economics Unit in the Sustainable Development Vice Presidency at the World Bank on a paper discussing some of the measures to fight climate change and their cost implications, and assessing the potential impact of these measures on households through price/tax increases. DDVE is also conducting a few country case studies on specific climate-change related shocks and potential impacts on poverty and inequality. Finally, DDVE is looking at the information available in household surveys to assess how households are affected by various types of shocks and analyze some of the coping strategies that households use to deal with the shocks’ impacts.
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