The World Bank has admitted in a new internal report that its nine-year-old forest strategy has been a failure and that the bank has succeeded neither in protecting forests nor in helping the poor communities that depend on them. In 1991, the bank adopted a new strategy to deflect criticism that its activities were abetting deforestation; the policy directed the bank to conserve tropical moist forests, plant trees to meet the needs of the poor, and monitor the impacts of its overall lending on forests. The new report found that the 1991 policy neglected some threatened, biodiversity-rich forest areas, and that it was only partially implemented. The unusually frank internal evaluation, commissioned by World Bank Pres. James Wolfensohn to help him develop a new forest strategy, was conducted by the bank’s Operations Evaluation Department, an autonomous group that reports directly to the bank’s board.
