tailieunhanh - The World Bank’s Genuine Savings Indicator: a Useful Measure of Sustainability?

World Bank documents and speeches now emphasise the need to assess the links between social and environmental changes and macroeconomic performance. Bank President Wolfensohn’s main current reform proposal is to refine and implement his Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF); an attempt to present an integrated, holistic analysis of the relationship between human, structural and environmental change and its traditional goals of macroeconomic stability and economic growth. 1 In this context the little-known work of the Bank's Environmental Economics and Indicators Unit is becoming more important. The Bank has long included numbers on environmental issues such as land use, deforestation and air. | The World Bank s Genuine Savings Indicator a Useful Measure of Sustainability Glyn Everett and Alex Wilks October 1999 BRETTON WOODS PROJECT Working to reform the World Bank and IMF Hamlyn House Macdonald Road London N19 5PG UK E-mail info@ Web 1 Acknowledgements Thanks are due in particular to Mark Anielski and Joy Hecht for helpful insights on national sustainability indicators and the work of the World Bank in this area. Kirk Hamilton for reading the draft and taking the time for two meetings to discuss Genuine Savings and the Bank s CASE initiative. Participants in the March 1999 Terschelling Island meeting on Questioning the World Bank IMF Growth Model and in the October 1999 Yale University conference on The Cost-Benefit Analysis Dilemma Strategies and Alternatives especially Joan Martinez-Alier and Martin O Connor. Fander Falconi for sharing his forthcoming article. The CS Mott Foundation for funding the Bretton Woods Project. This briefing aims to inform people about the Bank s Genuine Savings initiative but also to generate discussion. Please send any comments or reactions to awilks@ . If commentators agree we may post their views on our website with links provided at the end of the web edition of this briefing. Related reports See the Bretton Woods Project website for a complete list of our briefings and a complete set of our quarterly Bretton Woods Updates. The most directly relevant reports are Questioning the World Bank IMF Growth Model 1999. The World Bank and the State a Recipe for Change 1998. Drowning by Numbers the World Bank IMF and North-South Financial Flows 1998. Many reports by other organisations are listed in the endnotes to this document. About the Bretton Woods Project The Bretton Woods Project was established in 1995 by a network of 30 UK-based nongovernment organisations to support and take forward their work on World Bank and IMF .