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Poverty reduction strategies (PRSs)
provide a central framework for macroeconomic, structural,
and social policies in developing countries. Because of the
numerous and complex links between environment and poverty,
it is important that environmental issues are taken into
account in the PRS process. This paper follows six previous
assessments of the degree of mainstreaming environment in
the PRS process using a similar methodology to present
trends and provide an understanding of the effectiveness of
environmental interventions in reducing poverty. However, it
goes beyond previous assessments in three important ways.
In-depth country case studies of the evolution of
environmental mainstreaming in the PRS process over time.
Many countries have now gone through several iterations of
their poverty reduction strategies and have received a
sequence of credits designed to implement key aspects of
these strategies, making it possible to see how the process
of mainstreaming environment in the strategies has evolved
over time. In this assessment, the authors conduct detailed
case studies of this evolution in Ghana, Albania,
Bangladesh, and Vietnam. The choice of countries was based
on the maturity of each country's PRS process, taking
into consideration country size, lending volume, and
vulnerability to climate change. An assessment of climate
change mainstreaming in the PRS process in the same four
countries. Like environment as a whole, the potential
impacts of climate change have often been considered
separately, if at all rather than as an integral part of
development policies. An evaluation of environmental
development policy loans (DPLs) in several middle income
countries (Brazil, Gabon, and Mexico). DPLs represent an
important opportunity to mainstream environment and climate
change into middle-income countries' growth and
development. This review assesses the process by which
environmental DPLs have been prepared and the effectiveness
with which they have been implemented.
