The World Bank has been widely criticized for funding numerous environmentally damaging projects around the globe. Pictured: Construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, a controversial World Bank-funded project on the River Narmada, India that flooded thousands of acres of land and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. (Media credit/International Rivers via Flickr)

Originally created to finance the rebuilding of Europe after World War II, the World Bank later took on a larger mandate to try to alleviate poverty around the world. Unfortunately, many of the Bank’s policies and practices in intervening years clashed with conservation priorities. But the more recent onslaught of global warming threats, along with greater overall public environmental awareness, has forced the World Bank to factor sustainability concerns into how it encourages development moving forward.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a non-profit think tank, the World Bank has been widely criticized for funding a series of environmentally damaging projects in the 1980s, including the building of dams on the Narmada River in India, road building into the Brazilian Amazon and transmigration (re-settlement) efforts in Indonesia. “These projects have led to a variety of adverse impacts in borrower countries, including deforestation and displacement of indigenous peoples,” reports the group.

In response to the criticism, the World Bank adopted a set of policies and procedures in the late 1980s to better assess the potential adverse environmental impacts of its projects. The Bank further developed a series of polices to guide investment in such areas as forestry and energy. “For example, the bank’s forestry policy prohibits the institution from financing logging in primary tropical forests,” adds IPS.

Other highlights of the Bank’s first round of greening included the creation of a special unit to oversee environmentally and socially sustainable development, and the recruitment of staff with technical environmental credentials to supplement its professional core of economists. IPS reports that with these changes in place, the bank has been able to start developing a portfolio of environment-sector projects “ranging from support for national environmental agencies to investments in national parks.”

But an independent internal review of the World Bank’s sustainability impacts between 1990 and 2007 found that even these new sustainability-oriented policies fell flat. Researchers found that the bank’s private-sector funding arm, the International Finance Corporation, was still promoting the expansion of livestock herds, soybean fields and palm oil plantations—all which accelerated deforestation in the tropics, hastening the pace of climate change for the rest of us.

“They need to begin to see the inextricable link between sustaining environment and reducing poverty,” said Vinod Thomas, director of the World Bank group that performed the review. “It is clear now from the Amazon to India that if environmental sustainability is not raised as a priority, then all bets are off.”

The World Bank tried to address many of these concerns with the release of a beefed up Environment Strategy in 2001, but analysts remain critical of the organization’s performance and general commitment to sustainability. In June 2011 the World Bank will release a new Environment Strategy which it will use as a sustainability roadmap for its projects over the coming decade. The focus of the Bank’s sustainability work will be mitigating climate change through the promotion of clean energy technologies.

Green groups are relying increasingly on volunteers to get by as contributions and grants have dried up during the economic downturn. Here two volunteers volunteer last election day at the polls, trying to get petition signatures to persuade Congress to make climate change a priority.

Non-profits of every stripe have been suffering from the economic downturn. In a recent survey of 800 U.S.-based non-profits, 75 percent reported feeling the effects of the downturn, with more than half already experiencing significant cuts in funding from both government and private foundation sources.

According to a recently released report from Civic Enterprises and the Democratic Leadership Council entitled “Quiet Crisis: The Impact of the Economic Downturn on the Nonprofit Sector” few of these groups have strong reserves to weather the downturn”"more than half have less than three months of operating funds on hand, while three-quarters cannot make it six months on existing cash reserves.

And the outlook is not promising. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, which reports on trends in grantmaking, says that foundation assets have declined by some 28 percent following the economy’s nosedive; two-thirds of them expect to have reduced grants significantly by the end of 2009. Many grantmakers have, in fact, suspended grants altogether for the time being.

Despite their funding troubles, many environmental groups continue to provide core services. According to the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA), many cash-strapped groups are adapting by using more volunteers to get their work done, and actively seeking partnerships with other groups in order to make the most of limited resources and share overhead costs. And, of course, many green groups have cut costs through hiring freezes, layoffs and forced reductions in pay and hours for existing employees.

To Mark Tercek, president of the non-profit Nature Conservancy, the silver lining in the funding crisis for green groups is that it forces them to operate more efficiently and focus on core priorities: “Non-profits”¦have to be smart about adjusting to a tougher economic environment, including setting priorities” he says. “If resources are going to be constrained”¦then organizations have to ask the questions: “ËœWhat are we really best at? What are we uniquely positioned to do?’” Tercek adds that the recession also provides an “opportunity to connect the economic stimulus to environmental matters.”

And that’s just what the Obama administration hopes to do. By encouraging development of green technologies and services, the federal government aims to leverage environmental progress for an overall economic benefit. Most federal funding will go toward incentives for businesses and homeowners to adopt greener ways, but green groups with related expertise are in a good position to benefit as well.

Another boost for green groups could come if Congress passes the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which aims to flood non-profits with some 250,000 volunteers each year in a program akin to the Peace Corps but on the domestic front. Non-profits are also seeking changes to the federal tax code to further encourage corporate, foundation and individual donations.

Last week, Blast News reported that‚  some of Obama’s early advisers may prove disappointing for many who voted for him based on his plans for change.

Indeed, it appears the criticism may be starting to accumulate. Dean Baker, one of the few economists who predicted the housing bubble, wrote the following for The UK Guardian.

Those following the meeting of President Obama’s economic advisory committee could not have been very reassured by the presence of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both former Treasury secretaries in the Clinton administration. Along with former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin and Summers compose the high priesthood of the bubble economy. Their policy of one-sided financial deregulation is responsible for the current economic catastrophe.

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While the Bush administration must take responsibility for the current crisis (they have been in power the last 8 years), the stage was set during the Clinton years. The Clinton team set the economy on the path of one-sided financial deregulation and bubble-driven growth that brought us where we are today. (The deregulation was one-sided, because they did not take away the “too big to fail” security blanket of the Wall Street big boys.)

For this reason, it is very discouraging to see top Clinton administration officials standing center stage at President Obama’s meeting on the economy. This is not change, and certainly not policies that we can believe in.