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Download "Sustainable
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World Bank bonds are the primary funding source for member country project loans. Through its activities in the capital markets, the World Bank is able to fund projects in member countries in areas such as health and education, gender equality, and environmental protection and climate change activities.
The World Bank recently started tailoring products for investors that want to support clean technology, low carbon economies, and climate change related activities. The innovative “green bond” marked the first product which support projects specific to a World Bank program.
World Bank bonds raise $25 - $35 billion annually in capital markets for investments in projects designed to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable and caring growth that protects natural resources, making World Bank bonds especially attractive for investors with ethical or sustainable investment strategies.
Gender Equality in Indonesia
Kecamatan Development Project
Before 2001, women and poorer people were under-represented in Indonesia’s local governing bodies, or kecamatans. Without input or participation in kecamatans policy making, these groups did not have adequate access to basic public services such as health care and education. Women, in particular, were not given the public space to demand these services – traditionally, women did not formally participate in local governance.
Through World Bank funding and with the backing of the Indonesian Government, the Kecamatan Development Project was established to support grassroots democratization in more than 15,000 poor villages across Indonesia. Selected women, representing their villages in their designated kecamatan, were able to apply for funds to develop infrastructure, economic activities, social services, and community asset investments which would promote a sustainable economy across all sectors of their communities.
By the project’s end, women's participation in the kecamatans had increased as high as 46%, and $39.6 million in loans were distributed to local women who used the funds to finance traditional enterprises. They were provided training, capacity building, and skill development in activities that helped them to strengthen social services, infrastructure, and the local economy.
More about Project |
© Curt Carnemark / World Bank |
Project Summary
Purpose: Empowerment, social inclusion, law and justice
Project Term: 2001 – 2007
IBRD Financing: US$ 208.9 million |
Health In Russia
Health Reform Implementation Project
The Tuberculosis and AIDS Control Project aims to contain the growth of the epidemics of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS in the short term and halt and reverse the courses of these epidemics in the medium term. This first-ever countrywide TB and HIV/AIDS project in Russia was introduced in 2003 as the country was experiencing one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemics that threatens the health of its citizens and the economy. Russia is one of the 22 high-burden countries for TB in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and TB is thought to be present in a dormant form in about 80 percent of Russia’s population.
The project, in partnership with WHO and the Global Fund, supports improvement in policies, strategies and protocols for TB control; strengthens surveillance, monitoring, and quality assurance; improves the detection and treatment of TB cases. Now the strategy has been expanded to cover the 86 regions of the country, and initial results show that with project support since 2004, 85% of cases follow a standardized treatment regimen; a leveling off or a 5% decrease of new TB cases has been achieved; as well as a 5% decrease in TB mortality compared to 2005.
More about Project |
© Flore de Préneuf / World Bank |
Project Summary
Purpose: Tuberculosis and AIDS support
Project Term: 2003 – 2008
IBRD Financing: US$150 million |
Education In Turkey
Second Basic Education Project
Education for all is one of the top priorities of the World Bank in the fight against poverty. In 1998 Turkey embarked on a program of poverty reduction on an epic scale. Virtually overnight it extended compulsory primary school education from five years to eight. The program cost an average of US$3 billion a year. The World Bank provided funds to finance different aspects of the reform.
The second basic education project (2002 – 2007) built on the previous World Bank work in the area of basic education in Turkey. It supported the expansion of preschool education coverage to include children from educationally deprived households, financed continued rural school rehabilitation, and community initiatives to improve school attendance.
More about Project |
© Scott Wallace / World Bank |
Project Summary
Purpose: Education for all
Project Term: 2002 – 2007
IBRD Financing: US$300 million |
Social Protection in Ecuador
Judicial Reform Project
Twenty percent of households in Ecuador are headed by women - women who are more vulnerable to the threat of poverty than any other group in society.
Ecuador launched a Judicial Reform project to provide legal services that respond to the needs of women. The law and justice component of the project, which was financed with a World Bank loan, undertook reforms that lent support to non-governmental organizations working to provide free legal services to disenfranchised women. This was the first World Bank-financed project to include a legal aid component aimed at poor women and their children.
The project "Legal Aid for Poor Women" provided legal consultation and representation, counseling, and dispute resolution services to almost 17,000 poor women. It also assisted another 50,000 indirect beneficiaries, most of whom were the children of women making use of these services. Through this program, women gained a greater awareness and understanding of their rights. The evident success of the program inspired other governments to implement similar initiatives.
More about Project |
© Yosef Hadar / World Bank |
Project Summary
Purpose: Justice and law
Project Term: 1996 – 2002
IBRD Financing: US$10.7 million |
Climate Change Project in China
The Renewable Energy Scale-up Program
The Renewable Energy Scale-up program for China aims to create a legal, regulatory, and institutional environment conducive to large-scale, renewable-electricity generation, and to demonstrate early success in large-scale, renewable-energy development with participating local developers in two provinces. The Project has different components designed to meet national priorities and the needs of the pilot provinces (Fujian and Rudong). One of these components includes wind power generation, demonstrated by a wind farm on Pingtan Island. The wind farm has been able to convert cold winter air into 270 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year for the 400 thousand local residents of Pingtan Island. The Government of China has also given tax breaks and financial incentives for wind, solar and biomass power acquisition, making it easier for local businesses and investors to engage in emission reduction activities.
More about Project |
© Dai Cunfeng / World Bank: |
Project Summary
Purpose: Renewable Energy
Project Term: 2005 – 2010
IBRD Financing: US$87 million |
Environment in Kazakhstan
Syr Darya Control & Northern Aral Sea Project
In Kazakhstan, water preservation efforts for the Aral Sea are helping restore its economy. Since the 1990s, the Northern Aral Sea receded as far as 100 km away from the port city of Aralsk, Kazakhstan. Local fisheries processed less than 400 tons of fish, 4 times less than the fish production of the 1980s. The lack of water accessibility affected land production. As a result, fishing and agricultural industries adversely affected unemployment and regional trade in Kazakhstan’s already poorest regions.
Thanks to the construction of an 8 mile dike in the Aral Sea Basin, the value of the Northern Aral Sea has been restored. Part the regional initiative called Aral Sea Basin Program, the World Bank funded dike raised water levels by 4 meters in the Northern Aral Sea. The water distance closed in at only 25 km, increasing fishing production almost back to its historic level. The fishing trade has now resumed to as far west as Ukraine and land production due to flood reduction and major hydraulic works along the Syr Darya River Basin are expected to benefit an estimate of 1 million people in Kazakhstan’s poorest region, Kzyl Orda Oblast.
More about Project |
© Andrew Kircher/ World Bank |
Project Summary
Purpose: Northern Aral Sea Preservation
Project Term: 2001-2008
IBRD Financing: US$64.5 million |
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