Social and environmental dimensions in international development
Social and environmental dimensions in international development
Recent changes in international development have shifted the focus of development assistance from project support to policy dialogue and policy-based programmes with a view to reduce poverty. This new poverty-focused agenda reflects a renewed interest in social development, environmental management, and the poverty-environment nexus.
This report presents an overview of how four international development organisations have incorporated the social and environmental dimensions into their programmes. The institutions reviewed are the World Bank (WB), the Asia Development Bank (ADB), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
The report finds that all four agencies have developed agendas for social development and environmental management, and internal systems for handling such cross-cutting dimensions as part of mainstreaming. The strength of these dimensions vary significantly between organisation.
Lessons which may be useful for NORAD or other international organisations include:
- precisely define social development as a set of cross-cutting themes and a comprehensive agenda for analytical work, policy dialogue, and operations
- improve the institutionalisation of social and institutional analysis in operational work, and consider to introduce more formal requirements for social and environmental assessment
- prioritise research and development work on some of the social and environmental themes deemed as most critical, and establish the linkages between these themes and the broader poverty reduction strategy
- enhance the analytical work, applied research, knowledge management, and networking, especially in relation to a more focused and specific social development agenda
- continue efforts to coordinate support and activities with the multilateral system and other groups at country levels with the view to learn, influence, and harmonise social development and environmental management approaches.