Director of Operations
I have read the many reports that summarize the dire state of the climate and our planet’s worsening prospects. I know the hard statistics docum
enting rising temperatures, the increasing intensity of natural disasters and warmer seas. I have been meeting with representatives from developing countries who have one request:
It is undeniable that progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty over the last 
quarter century—from 36 percent of the world population in 1990 to an estimated 8.6 percent in 2018—and that living standards for hundreds of millions of people have improved over that time.
Yet, poverty reduction has not been consistent across countries and today it is slowing.
Next week, I’ll attend the climate summit hosted by the United Nations as part of the 74th session of the General Assembly. A range of environmental challenges—including pollution, the degradation of forests and biodiversity, marine plastics, and extreme weather events—are putting sustainable economic growth and inclusive development at risk. While international discussions have a place in looking for results, one of the great strengths of the World Bank Group is in partnering with countries to find local solutions and deliver good outcomes.
I started reading about the Aral Sea disaster in 1989 ahead of my first visit, as a student 
and tourist, to Uzbekistan, then still a Soviet republic. In Karakalpakstan, the autonomous republic in current-day Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea has all but disappeared. Where fishing communities once thrived, all that remains is a scarred, desert landscape. Rusted ships are perched precariously on piles of sand and salt, along with a potent, unhealthy mix of toxic pollutants from industrial agriculture.
Deadline: 01-Jul-2019 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.)
The World Bank is now seeking a consulting firm to build upon CRP4R tool, develop the
version 2.0 and tailor it to the context in Haiti for the implementation of Project P163490. The new tool should also contemplate how to incorporate into the prioritization exercise feeder road segments chosen through Local Mobility Plans (LMPs) in the area of influence of the Project. This new feature of the model, using two different layers of choice, will necessitate several iterations with the Team.
vulnerable to climate risk.Deadline: 17-Jun-2019 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.)
As part of the World Bank’s West Africa Coastal Areas (WACA) Program, the objective of
this activity is to develop, in a participatory manner, a Multi-sectoral Investment Plan (MSIP) for coastal risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The MSIP will be an action plan for the development of the Nigerian coastal zone, integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk management considerations, and focused on but not limited to coastal erosion, flooding, and pollution. The MSIP will take into account all sectors involved in the zone and their contribution, in the medium and long term, for the strategic development of coastal areas in Nigeria. The activity should delineate objective, prioritized investment needs for integrated coastal zone management, providing indicative/estimated financing requirements for priority interventions, and developing a “pre-design” for the highest priority investment in each state (across four states).
The phone call to the World Bank Treasury came out of the blue: in late 2007, a group of 
Swedish pension funds wanted to invest in projects that help the climate, but they did not know how to find these projects. But they knew where to turn and called on the World Bank to help. Less than a year later, the World Bank issued the first green bond—and with it, created a new way to connect financing from investors to climate projects.
According to IUCN’s ‘Global Forest Watch’, from 2001 to 2017, 337 million hectares of 
tropical tree cover was lost globally – an area the size of India.
So, we appear to be losing the battle, if not the war, against tropical deforestation, and missing a key opportunity to tackle climate change (if tropical deforestation were a country, it would rank 3rd in emissions) and reduce poverty. A key question, then, is what can forest sector investors, governments and other actors do differently to reverse these alarming trends?
On August 1st Bjorn Kuil started as Senior Counselor at the Board of the Inter-American 
Development Bank, having previously held the position of senior policy officer at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs since October 2013. “Throughout my career in the public and private sector I’ve come to realize that finance can leverage relationships, mitigate risks, and plays an important catalytic role. It has become my mission working towards sustainable, inclusive economic development as this is an indispensable part of efforts to combat poverty and improve global living conditions in line with the Sustainable Development Agenda. When looking at all the challenges facing the world, including inequality, population migration, and climate change, there is a clear role for development finance in nearly all of them.”
