Over a half of a billion people live in extreme poverty, most of whom depend on natural resources for their survival. Yet these resources are becoming increasingly degraded, and climate change threatens to increase the vulnerability of the poor. The natural resources that are highly degraded and the people who are highly vulnerable are interconnected by the “natural resource degradation and human vulnerability nexus,” which is the subject of this evaluation.
Overall, the World Bank has been effective at improving natural resource management practices, but related projects struggle to find the right balance between achieving resource restoration and meeting the needs of vulnerable resource users. The evaluation recommends, and management agrees to better identify and address the heterogenous needs of different subgroups of resource users, address the underlying factors that drive natural resource degradation, and enhance measurement of natural resource and human vulnerability outcomes.
Explore the report to learn more about the World Bank’s support for natural resources and the people that depend on them most.
