Toward an Environmental Strategy for Asia: A Summary of a World Bank Discussion Paper

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World Bank Publications, 1993 M01 1 - 34 pages
This step-by-step guidebook helps policymakers determine which infrastructure services could be supplied more efficiently and equitably by the private sector. It describes ways to shift these services to the market. Examples of successful partnerships between public and private sectors are reviewed in detail. To boost private involvement, the guidebook looks at ways to increase competition between the two sectors and reduce their financial risks. It examines the government's role in planning service investments, designing fair regulation policies, and giving consumers a voice in service management. Thes key sectors discussed are: railways, port systems, major highways, public transport, power transmission grids, road freight transport, and water and sanitation systems.

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Contents

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Page 2 - Pressure on the region's resources is intense and growing. There are serious problems in the areas of urban environmental degradation, industrial pollution, atmospheric emissions, soil erosion and land degradation, degradation of water resources, deforestation, and loss of natural habitat. Questions about the sustainability of current economic growth are more than an abstraction concerning limits to growth.
Page 2 - Economic and population growth has led to severe negative impacts on the Asian environment. Pressure on the region's resources is intense and growing. There are serious problems in the areas of urban environmental degradation, industrial pollution, atmospheric emissions, soil erosion and land degradation, degradation of water resources, deforestation, and loss of natural habitat.
Page 15 - The amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and total suspended particulates in the air - three of the most dangerous industrial pollutants increased by a factor of ten in Thailand, eight in the Philippines and five in Indonesia between 1975 and 1988. Five of the seven cities in the world with the worst air pollution are in Asia (The Economist, 1993).
Page 8 - The poor are disproportionately the victims of pollution because they are less buffered than the nonpoor from water pollution, toxic wastes, solid wastes, congestive traffic, and air and noise pollution.
Page 3 - ... accomplishing Improved environmental management. The first of its five components Is the need to set priorities-an obvious but difficult step Imposed by shortages of financial and administrative resources. The paper then addresses the four key components of national environmental strategies: designIng cost-effective policy instruments; Improving Institutional capacity; Increasing public and private sector Investments; and Improving technology, even in areas not fully supported by the market....
Page 11 - The amount of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and suspended particulates, three of the most dangerous industrial pollutants, increased by a factor of ten in Thailand, eight in the Philippines and five in Indonesia, between 1975 and 1988. Five of the seven cities in the world with the worst air pollution are now in Asia (see Figure 4.12).
Page 1 - Bank, it provides an analysis of current environmental issues in Asia and a systematic treatment of topics that are appropriate to the Bank's future lending, research, and policy dialogue. • For...
Page 16 - Because of the magnitude of investment required, higher growth allows for more rapid turnover of aging technology, more rapid restructuring of industry and its product mix, greater opportunities for attracting foreign partners and technology, and higher public revenues. In Indonesia it is projected that by 2010 new investment will account for 85 percent of total industrial capacity. The World Bank has initiated three "first-generation" industrial pollution control projects in Asia, each of which...
Page 11 - ... total forested area China = 1.15 million square km. air pollution has become a staple of region's skyscape. Five of the seven most air-polluted cities in the world are in Asia: Calcutta, Jakarta, New Delhi, Peking and Shenyang. Levels of suspended particulate matter and lead — the air pollutants with the most serious health impacts — are rising in virtually all Asian cities, Kaji notes. Left untended, these problems are certain to get worse. Energy demand in the region, to give just one example...
Page 9 - Infrastructure and services are unable to keep up with these trends. Local governments lack the capacity to collect and dispose of municipal sewage and solid wastes, or to control emissions and toxic wastes.

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