Building a Foundation: Stocktaking, Research, and Consultation

Making Sustainable Commitments is the culmination of a two-year effort involving extensive stocktaking, research, consultation, and feedback.

The Bank prepared numerous background papers on the linkages between the environment and issues such as poverty, health, and natural resources management:

• Internally, the Operations Evaluation Department and the Strategy team reviewed the Bank’s experience and record in the environmental area over the past few decades to draw lessons for the Strategy.
• Each operational Bank Region prepared a Regional Environment Strategy. These reports were instrumental in identifying areas of unique concern to each Region, as well as underlying themes that are common to all Regions.
• Between May 2000 and May 2001, over 30 formal and informal meetings or working sessions took place in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America,the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Europe, Japan, and North America.