South Asia Region

Increasingly, the focus in South Asia is better use of major inputs for rural development (especially land and credit) and development of better markets (trade and agroprocessing issues), as well as public sector institution reform (agriculture, water, forests, energy, health, finance, and infrastructure), particularly to achieve better service delivery to the poor.

 

The pattern of investments in SAR is very much driven by the large loans which have been undertaken in India in support of Joint Forest Management (JFM) activities, through which active participation of communities is encouraged in forest management and conservation. The demand from state governments for more of this type of lending is very high, and (after a short hiatus in which the Bank’s South Asia region addressed issues of integrating forestry loans in the broader context of rural development for better poverty impacts, managing reputational risks, etc.) the Bank appears to be moving towards a re-commitment to assistance in this sector in India. Such recommitment is welcome because Bank lending to support JFM in India has a long history, and is judged by the OED and most outside observers to have been successful and credited with significant impacts upon poverty.

 

Table 6. Examples of projects with major forest components in SAR