A Review of the Valuation of Environmental Costs and Benefits in World Bank Projects

The review examines the use of
environmental valuation in 101 projects in the World
Bank's environmental portfolio approved in fiscal years
2000, 2001, and 2002. It has three broad objectives. First,
it examines the extent to which environmental costs and
benefits have been incorporated in the economic analysis of
projects. Second, it examines how well valuation was used.
Third, it seeks to identify areas of weakness so as to feed
into plans for capacity building. The results show that the
use of environmental valuation has increased substantially
in the last decade. Ten years ago, one project in 162 used
environmental valuation. In recent years, as many as one
third of the projects in the environmental portfolio did so.
While this represents a substantial improvement, there
remains considerable scope for growth.