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.
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World Bank bonds raise $25 - $35 billion annually in capital markets for investments in projects designed to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable and caring growth that protects natural resources, making World Bank bonds especially attractive for investors with ethical or sustainable investment strategies.
Colombia: Integrated Mass Transit System
75% of Colombia's population currently lives in cities and most of these urban residents rely entirely on the public transportation system. Yet, public transportation is the cause of many of these cities' problems, including serious traffic congestion, high incidences of accidents and crime, unhealthy air, and pollutants responsible for 62% of Colombia's carbon emissions.
In 1998, the Colombian government began modernizing its transit system by developing a rapid bus system called Transmilenio in Bogota. Funded by the World Bank through the Bogota Urban Transport Project, the Transmilenio soon became an internationally recognized model for efficiency, improved speed, safety, and reduced urban traffic.
The Colombian government and the World Bank are continuing to work together through the World Bank-funded Integrated Mass Transit Systems Second Additional Financing Project. It is designed to improve transport efficiency and accessibility, and allow for less fuel use per kilometer and fewer air pollutant emissions. It will also reduce fuel consumption as old buses are retired and replaced with new fuel efficient ones. The government continues to see this new transit system as an important contributor to climate change mitigation and is analyzing how further improvements to urban transport systems can contribute to reducing Colombia's carbon footprint.
The Transmilenio program has been registered under the Clean Development Mechanism to deliver carbon credits.
Project Summary
Purpose: To reduce carbon emissions and transform public transportation efficiency.
Project Approval Date: 2009
IBRD Financing: US$ 300 million
Project ID: P114325
Eco-Farming Project
In China, millions of households rely on the agriculture sector for their livelihood and their future depends on improved management of their natural resources. The agricultural sector, however, has had widespread negative impacts on the environmentbecause of inadequate farming techniques involving intensive and mechanized farming, misuse of land leading to desertification, over-use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and the rapid growth in livestock production without adequate environmental controls. In addition, agriculture is responsible for 50% of China’s methane emissions—methane is a potent greenhouse gas.
This project will improve the rural environment and living conditions in the project areas by promoting environmentally friendly and economically efficient farm production. In addition to cleaner, healthier farmyard environments, a key goal of the project is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through methane capture and combustion to generate energy and reduced burning of coal and firewood in the project areas. By the end of the project, CO2eq emissions in the project area are expected to be reduced by 800,000-1,000,000 tons per year.
Project Summary
Purpose: To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deliver economic benefits through biogas systems in rural communities.
Project Term: 2008 – 2014
IBRD Financing: US$ 120 million
Project ID: P096556
Emergency Recovery and Disaster Risk Management
In 2007, the Dominican Republic was hit by two powerful tropical storms that not only left thousands of families homeless and damaged crops, but also destroyed the better part of country’s infrastructure, including roads, bridges, electricity networks, and irrigation systems.
With the help of World Bank-funded Emergency Recovery and Disaster Management Project, the national government is rebuilding the country’s national electricity, irrigation and water supply sectors. It is also strengthening its government agencies’ capacity to manage water and electricity resources in order to mitigate potential effects of future emergencies. As these agencies update contingency plans and increase their risk management capacity, this project is illustrative of climate adaptation support in storm-vulnerable tropical areas.
Project Summary
Purpose: Provide infrastructure recovery and strengthen risk management capacity in tropical storm affected areas
Project Term: 2008 – 2012
IBRD Financing: US$ 80 million
Project ID: P109932
Climate Change Montenegro
Montenegro Energy Efficiency Project
Montenegro imports about one-third of its power to feed its fast growing energy demands and to make-up for diminishing power production due to old structures and limited investments. The government of Montenegro recognizes that additional capacity and greater energy efficiency is badly needed to meet the growing energy demand. Additionally, when national governments make energy efficiency investments in the public sector, local governments become more willing to implement their own energy efficiency programs.
The Montenegro Energy Efficiency Project is designed to improve energy efficiency performance in public sector buildings, such as schools and clinics. The investments finance energy efficiency measures, such as retrofitting to improve heating systems and insulation as well as related heating substations and transmission networks. The project demonstrates practical solutions for efficiency upgrades within the public sector. The project also complements the activities of other donors, such as the governments of Norway and Italy, KfW, GTZ, European Commission, and UNDP, while providing financing for energy efficiency improvements in a sector that has difficulty securing such financing.
Project Summary
Purpose: Improve energy efficiency in buildings used for health and education services
Project Term: 2008 – 2012
IBRD Financing: US$ 9 million
Education Morocco
Equal Access to Basic Education Project
The formal education system in Morocco faces many challenges. Drop out and repetition rates are high, and gender and geographical disparities still exist at all education levels.Morocco also faces a rapidly increasing demand for middle schools, as a result of increased access to primary education. With government spending on education already high, opportunities to expand the budget are limited. The Basic Education Reform Project addresses these challenges by supporting government efforts to boost the quality of basic education for all chil¬dren ages six to fourteen in a financially sustainable manner.
Project Summary
Purpose: Education for All
Project Term: 2005 – 2009
IBRD Financing: US$ 80 million
Education Philippines
Basic Education Project
The National Program Support for Basic Education project aims to improve quality and equity in teaching for all Filipino children in basic education.
The project will help enhance the quality and equity of basic education, improve teaching effectiveness by refining current standards for the hiring and promotion of teachers, develop and further strengthen the management of schools, and help restructure the Education Department's budget.
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 $39.6 million in loans were distributed to local women who used the funds to finance traditional enterprises. They were provided training, capacity building, and skill development in activities that helped them to strengthen social services, infrastructure, and the local economy.
Project Summary
Purpose: Empowerment, social inclusion, law and justice
Project Term: 2001 – 2007
IBRD Financing: US$ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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