Results of TFESSD activities

The overall aim of the Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development is to facilitate mainstreaming of environmental, social and poverty reducing dimensions of sustainable development into World Bank work.

TFESSD continues to support a wide range of activities in all regions of the world, focusing on the needs of low-income countries. The portfolio includes activities from across all four sector boards; Social Protection, Social Development, Poverty, and Environment.

The TFESSD has provided WBG staff with funding opportunities for innovative activities at an early stage when other funding was difficult to secure. The flexible funding structure of the fund allows the fund to evolve thematically and to promote cross cutting work. The TFESSD has increased capacity and knowledge internally at the WBG, in addition to improving collaboration between various units within the WBG.

Below are examples of the impact of some TFESSD activities in 2010:

• A TFESSD activity on climate change and fisheries in West Africa aided in the establishment of a Toolkit that has been incorporated into a 5-country sub-regional World Bank operation, The West Africa Regional Fisheries Project (WARFP) as well as into the Senegal Sustainable Fisheries Management Project.
  
  
• The TFESSD-funded activity on Air Pollution Control in China raised the awareness of the government on the harmful effects of fine particulate matter as a result of which the Ministry of Environmental Protection requested the World Bank’s assistance to expand China’s Air Pollution Control program in two provinces and to develop Air Quality Management models for Chinese cities for the 12^th Five-Year Plan.
  
  
• UNICEF is using survey results from a TFESSD activity as baseline for a pilot conditional cash transfer program in one region of Senegal.
  
  
• The Morocco Country Assistance/Partnership Strategy focuses for the first time on youth development issues and the need to address them operationally, following in the wake of strong government engagement and capacity building efforts in a TFESSD activity on youth inclusion.
  
  
• Poverty economists are testing the use of cell phone network as an alternative to costly door to door surveys. The TFESSD activity Listening to LAC uses mobile technology to improve collection of welfare and event data in real time.
  
  
• The TFESSD-supported analytical work on Upgrading Informal Settlements contributed to a national policy on slums and a request for a lending project in India; request for development policy loan for urban upgrading in Brazil; and analysis of urban settlements and informal real estate markets in Angola.
  
  
• In Haiti, messages from the TFESSD-sponsored nutrition assessment are being applied to the revision of the National Nutrition Policy.
  
  
• One TFESSD activity identified the most flood-vulnerable areas in Kolkata, India, assessed the economic damage resulting from climate change, and identified an adaptation strategy to protect urban infrastructure and the livelihood of urban communities.