The Local Impacts of World Bank Development Projects Near Sites of Conservation Significance

We evaluated the local impacts of World Bank development projects on sites of recognized conservation significance (Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas [IBAs]) using tree cover change data and in situ state, pressure, and response monitoring data. IBAs adjacent to World Bank project locations and a matched set of IBAs distant from World Bank project locations had similar rates of tree loss and similar in situ measurements of conservation outcomes. Thus, we did not detect any significant net negative impacts of World Bank projects on tree cover or conservation outcomes. These results are encouraging because 89% of World Bank projects that are close to IBAs are environmentally sensitive projects (so-called Category A and Category B projects) subjected to the organization’s most stringent safeguards. However, the limitations of our evaluation design do not allow us to rule out the possibility that World Bank projects had positive or negative effects that were undetectable.

Is that Environmental Factor Affected the Distressed Farmers’ most!? - An Exploratory Factor Analysis of Constraint and Amelioration Strategies in National Calamity Hit Region of India

The Kosi River is infamous in India for its rapid and recurrent changes of course and the widespread flood damages it causes almost annually. But, the flood of 18th August, 2008 was the most devastating down the memory lane of the survival. The destruction was of such a magnitude that state government of Bihar had to seek World Bank (Project ID: P122096) assistance. Keeping this in view, an earnest effort was made to study the perceived constraints of distressed farmers and strategies for its amelioration. To materialize pretested closed structured interview schedule the application of the principle axis factoring vis-à-vis exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was done among 60 respondents from the non-sample. EFA extracted 4 latent broad constraints having Eigen value >1 that was rechristened as: environmental, pecuniary, policy and miscellaneous constraints. Finally, 20 specific constraints under 4 broad constraints were used to collect data from 160 respondents in the sample area. Garret methodology was used to rank the specific constraints under broad constraints. Friedman two-way ANOVA by ranks test deciphered that severity order of broad constraints was environmental, pecuniary, miscellaneous and policy constraints respectively. Since, the World Bank project is running in full swing in the calamity stricken region and so the four broad constraints as well as the 20 specific constraints identified and suggestion to ameliorate these can be vital for policy formulation and its implementation. The authors also suggest that in case of dearth of fund the most severe environmental constraints should be given due weightage followed by severity of other broad constraints.