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The Converging Technology Revolution and Human Capital: Potential and Implications for South Asia (South Asia Development Forum)
by Sajitha Bashir Carl Dahlman Naoto Kanehira TilmesSouth Asia is heavily impacted by the devastating loss of lives and human capital from the COVID-19 pandemic and the converging technology revolution sweeping the globe. The Converging Technology Revolution and Human Capital: Potential and Implications for South Asia looks at how the region could capitalize on these technologies to accelerate its development of human capital and promote adaptability and resilience to future shocks. The convergence of technological breakthroughs spanning biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science is driven by artificial intelligence, data flows, computing power, and connectivity. These breakthroughs can improve service delivery, productivity, and innovation, but they can also exacerbate inequalities and eliminate people’s agency and empowerment. This report analyzes these trends in the region, offering a comprehensive agenda to exploit the opportunities offered by converging technologies while minimizing the risks to vulnerable populations. It proposes strategies for building public sector capacity and promoting data and technology governance frameworks in a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
Development as Freedom in a Digital Age
by Bjã¶rn Sã¶ren GiglerUnder what conditions can new technologies enhance the well-being of poor communities? The study designs an alternative evaluation framework (AEF) that applies Amartya Sen's capability approach to the study of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in order to place people's well-being, rather than technology, at the center of the study. The AEF develops an impact chain that examines the mechanisms by which access to, and meaningful use of, ICTs can enhance people's "informational capabilities ? and improve people's human and social capabilities. This approach thus uses people's individual and collective capabilities, rather than measures of access or use, as its principal evaluative space. Based on empirical evidence from indigenous communities' use of new technologies in rural Bolivia, the study concludes that enhancing poor people's informational capabilities is the most critical factor determining the impact of ICTs on their well-being. Improved informational capabilities, like literacy, do enhance the human capabilities of poor and marginalized peoples to make strategic life choices and achieve the lifestyle they value. Evaluating the impact of ICTs in terms of capabilities thus reveals no direct relationship between improved access to, and use of, ICTs and enhanced well-being; ICTs lead to improvements in people's lives only when informational capabilities are transformed into expanded human and social capabilities in the economic, political, social, organizational, and cultural dimensions of their lives. The study concludes that intermediaries are bound to play a central, even fundamental, role in this process. They help poor communities to enact and appropriate ICTs to their local socio-cultural context so that their use becomes meaningful for people's daily lives, enhances their informational capabilities, and ultimately improves their human and social capabilities.
Energy Efficiency: Lessons Learned from Success Stories
by Gary Stuggins Alexander Sharabaroff Yadviga SemikolenovaEnergy efficiency is an important factor in an economy, since it helps meet energy needs, decrease costs, and lower environmental impacts. A review of the evolution of energy intensity in European and Former Soviet Union countries indicates a positive trend: high-energy-intensity countries have now reached the level of medium-energy-intensity economies 15 years earlier, and in the same period, medium-energy-intensity ones had similarly evolved to levels of low-energy-intensity. At the same time, the fast transitioning economies of Central Europe converged towards similar levels of energy intensities, in line with EU Directives, while successful EU-15 countries managed to maintain economic growth while keeping energy use flat. This report looks at how countries effect the transition from high- to medium- to low-energy-intensity, exploring whether leapfrogging is possible (it’s not) and what policies can be particularly helpful. Some of the lessons include: energy prices tend to evolve from subsidized levels to full-cost-recovery to full-cost-recovery-plus environmental externalities; industrial energy efficiency is often the starting point, with privatization and competition driving companies to reduce production costs, including energy; successful countries excell at governance (setting targets, building institutional capacity, creating and improving the legal and regulatory framework, and monitoring and evaluating); households tended to be the last, and most difficult, area of reform, starting with pricing improvements, outreach campaigns, financing programs, and building certificates programs.
Financing Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Brazil, China, India, and Beyond
by Jeremy Levin Chandrasekar Govindarajalu Anke S. Meyer Robert P. Taylor William A. WardWhile energy efficiency projects could partly meet new energy demand more cheaply than new supplies, weak economic institutions in developing and transitional economies impede developing and financing energy efficiency retrofits. This book analyzes these difficulties, suggests a 3-part model for projectizing and financing energy efficiency retrofits, and presents thirteen case studies to illustrate the issues and principles involved.
Food Safety Handbook: A Practical Guide for Building a Robust Food Safety Management System
by International Finance CorporationThe Food Safety Handbook: A Practical Guide for Building a Robust Food Safety Management System, contains detailed information on food safety systems and what large and small food industry companies can do to establish, maintain, and enhance food safety in their operations. This new edition updates the guidelines and regulations since the previous 2016 edition, drawing on best practices and the knowledge IFC has gained in supporting food business operators around the world. The Food Safety Handbook is indispensable for all food business operators -- anywhere along the food production and processing value chain -- who want to develop a new food safety system or strengthen an existing one.
Forests Sourcebook
by World BankThe 'Forests Sourcebook' provides practical operations-oriented guidance for forest sector engagement toward the goals of poverty reduction, conservation and economic development. Intended to guide World Bank lending activities and projects, the 'Forests Sourcebook' offers information useful to a broad audience of practitioners, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations. The 'Sourcebook was developed in partnership with members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, including the Food and Agriculture Organization. The 'Sourcebook' provides background on key issues, lessons learned, and recommendations for practitioners on a number of topics including private sector engagement, forest governance, sustainable plantation and commercial harvesting, and forest information management systems. Giving insight into the complex interplay between different realms of development work that effect or are affected by forests, the 'Forests Sourcebook' is a valuable tool for any stakeholder involved in development or business projects that could have impact on forests.
The Future of the Natural Gas Market in Southeast Europe
by Franz GernerThis study was to analyze the future role of natural gas in the energy mix of countries of South East Europe. The study further identifies regional, cross-border and country-specific gas infrastructure projects that are economically, financially and technically sound. The study also analyses, and makes proposals for, the institutional and policy issues relating to funding and implementing gas infrastructure projects. The study examines sources of gas supply from Russia, the Caspian region and other current and prospective producer countries through Turkey and other transit routes (including LNG) and assesses costs of supply and gasification prospects in nine gas markets in the South East Europe region: * Albania * Bosnia and Herzegovina * Bulgaria * Croatia * Kosovo * Macedonia * Montenegro * Romania * Serbia These markets are all signatories of the Athens Memoranda of 2002 and 2003, which commit the participants to regional cooperation in electricity and gas.
The Global Opportunity in IT-Based Services
by Arturo Muente-Kunigami Philippe Dongier Seth Ayers Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang Randeep SudanRapid advances in information technology (IT) and the resulting global connectivity are fueling dynamic growth in the services sector. Demand for IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) is estimated to represent a $500 billion annual market, of which only about 20 percent has been realized. Thus, this sector is creating new opportunities for economic growth, social empowerment, and grassroots innovation in developing countries. The potential for employment for youth and women is a particular benefit. This book is a practical guide for policy makers aiming to grow their IT services and ITES industries. It defines the development impact of the two industries and then analyzes factors crucial to the competitiveness of a country or location-including skills, cost advantages, infrastructure, and a hospitable business environment. It examines the potential competitiveness of small countries and of least developed countries specifically. This volume presents the Location Readiness Index, a modeling tool developed by McKinsey and Company for the World Bank and the Information Development Program. The index helps countries to identify their areas of relative strengths and weaknesses and to focus their efforts on interventions with the greatest likelihood for success. The book concludes by discussing specific policy options for enabling growth in the IT services and ITES industries.
Harvesting Prosperity: Technology and Productivity Growth in Agriculture
by Keith Fuglie Madhur Gautam Aparajita Goyal MaloneyBack cover blurb Rising agricultural productivity has driven improvements in living standards for millennia. Today, redoubling that effort in developing countries is critical to reducing extreme poverty, ensuring food security for an increasing global population, and adapting to changes in climate. This volume presents fresh analysis on global trends and sources of productivity growth in agriculture and offers new perspectives on the drivers of that growth. It argues that gains from the reallocation of land and labor are not as promising as believed, so policy needs to focus more on the generation and dissemination of new technologies, which requires stepping up national research efforts. Yet, in many of the poorest nations, a serious research spending gap has emerged precisely at the time when the challenges faced by agriculture are intensifying. The book focuses on how this problem can be redressed in the public sector, as well as on reforms aimed at mobilizing new private sector actors and value chains, particularly creating a better enabling environment, reforming trade regulations, introducing new products, and strengthening intellectual property rights. On the demand side, the book examines what recent research reveals about policies to reduce the barriers impeding smallholder farmers from adopting new technologies. Harvesting Prosperity is the fourth volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers. “As rightly argued by the authors, growth in agricultural productivity is the essential instrument to promote development in low-income agriculture-based countries. Achieving this requires research and development, upgrading of universities, reinforcement of farmer capacities, removal of constraints to adoption, and the development of inclusive value chains with interlinked contracts. As important, such efforts also need to be placed within a context of comprehensive agricultural, rural, and structural transformations. However, in many countries implementation of the requisite policies has been lagging. This book, with contributions from many top experts in the field, provides the most up-to-date presentation of this argument and explains in detail how to successfully put its ideas into practice. Governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations need to study it carefully to turn the promise of agriculture for development into a reality.“ Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet Professors of the Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley
The IBNET Water Supply and Sanitation Performance Blue Book: The International Benchmarking Network of Water and Sanitation Utilities Databook
by Caroline van den Berg Alexander DanilenkoThis book aims to raise awareness of how the International Benchmarking Network of Water and Sanitation Utilities (IBNET)can help utilities identify ways to improve urban water and wastewater services. It provides an introduction to benchmarking and to the objectives, scope and focus of IBNET and describes some of its recent achievements. The methodology and data behind IBNET are elaborated, and an overview of IBNET results and country data are presented.
ICT in Agriculture (Updated Edition): Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks, and Institutions
by World BankInformation and communication technology (ICT) has always mattered in agriculture. Ever since people have grown crops, raised livestock, and caught fish, they have sought information from one another. Today, ICT represents a tremendous opportunity for rural populations to improve productivity, to enhance food and nutrition security, to access markets, and to find employment opportunities in a revitalized sector. ICT has unleashed incredible potential to improve agriculture, and it has found a foothold even in poor smallholder farms. ICT in Agriculture, Updated Edition is the revised version of the popular ICT in Agriculture e-Sourcebook, first launched in 2011 and designed to support practitioners, decision makers, and development partners who work at the intersection of ICT and agriculture. Our hope is that this updated Sourcebook will be a practical guide to understanding current trends, implementing appropriate interventions, and evaluating the impact of ICT interventions in agricultural programs.
In the Dark: How Much Do Power Sector Distortions Cost South Asia? (South Asia Development Forum Ser.)
by Fan ZhangElectricity shortages are among the biggest barriers to South Asia’s development. Some 255 million people—more than a quarter of the world’s off-grid population—live in South Asia, and millions of households and firms that are connected experience frequent and long hours of blackouts. Inefficiencies originating in every link of the electricity supply chain contribute significantly to the power deficit. Three types of distortions lead to most of the inefficiencies: institutional distortions caused by state ownership and weak governance; regulatory distortions resulting from price regulation, subsidies, and cross-subsidies; and social distortions (externalities) causing excessive environmental and health damages from energy use. <P><P> Using a common analytical framework and covering all stages of power supply, In the Dark identifies and estimates how policy-induced distortions have affected South Asian economies. The book introduces two innovations. First, it goes beyond fiscal costs, evaluating the impact of distortions from a welfare perspective by measuring the impact on consumer wellbeing, producer surplus, and environmental costs. And second, the book adopts a broader definition of the sector that covers the entire power supply chain, including upstream fuel supply and downstream access and reliability. <P><P> The book finds that the full cost of distortions in the power sector is far greater than previously estimated based on fiscal cost alone: The estimated total economic cost is 4†“7 percent of the gross domestic product in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Some of the largest costs are upstream and downstream. Few other reforms could quickly yield the huge economic gains that power sector reform would produce. By expanding access to electricity and improving the quality of supply, power sector reform would also directly benefit poor households. The highest payoffs are likely to come from institutional reforms, expansion of reliable access, and the appropriate pricing of carbon and local air pollution emissions.
Information and Communications for Development 2012
by World Bank StaffWith some six billion mobile subscriptions now in use worldwide, around three-quarters of the world's inhabitants now have access to a mobile phone. Mobiles are arguably the most ubiquitous modern technology - in some developing countries, more people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water, a bank account or even electricity. Mobile communications now offer major opportunities to advance human development - from providing basic access to education or health information to making cash payments and stimulating citizen involvement in democratic processes. This 2012 edition of the World Bank's Information and Communication for Development Report analyses the growth and evolution of mobile telephony, and the rise of data-based services delivered to handheld devices, including 'apps' or smartphone applications. The report explores the consequences for development of the emerging 'app economy'. It summarises current thinking and seeks to inform the debate on the use of mobile phones for development. This report looks, in particular, at key ecosystem-based applications in agriculture, health, financial services, employment and government, with chapters devoted to each. It's no longer about the phone itself, but about how it is used, and the content and applications that mobile phones open up. Mobile applications not only empower individual users, they enrich their lifestyles and livelihoods, and boost the economy as a whole. Mobile apps make phones immensely powerful as portals to the online world. A new wave of apps and 'mash-ups' of services, driven by high-speed networks, social networking, online crowdsourcing and innovation, is helping mobile phones transform the lives of people in developed and developing countries alike. The report finds that mobile applications not only empower individuals, but have important cascade effects stimulating growth, entrepreneurship and productivity throughout the economy as a whole. Mobile communications promise to do more than just give the developing world a voice - they unlock the genie in the phone, empowering people to make their own choices and decisions.
Insect and Hydroponic Farming in Africa: The New Circular Food Economy (Agriculture and Food Series)
by Dorte Verner Nanna Roos Afton Halloran Surabian Maximillian Ashwill Saleema Vellani Yasuo KonishiInterestingly, some relief from today's woes may come from ancient human practices. While current agri-food production models rely on abundant supplies of water, energy, and arable land and generate significant greenhouse gas emissions in addition to forest and biodiversity loss, past practices point toward more affordable and sustainable paths. Different forms of insect farming and soilless crop farming, or hydroponics, have existed for centuries. In this report the authors make a persuasive case that frontier agriculture, particularly insect and hydroponic farming, can complement conventional agriculture. Both technologies reuse society's agricultural and organic industrial waste to produce nutritious food and animal feed without continuing to deplete the planet's land and water resources, thereby converting the world's wasteful linear food economy into a sustainable, circular food economy. As the report shows, insect and hydroponic farming can create jobs, diversify livelihoods, improve nutrition, and provide many other benefits in African and fragile, conflict-affected countries. Together with other investments in climate-smart agriculture, such as trees on farms, alternate wetting and drying rice systems, conservation agriculture, and sustainable livestock, these technologies are part of a promising menu of solutions that can help countries move their land, food, water, and agriculture systems toward greater sustainability and reduced emissions. This is a key consideration as the World Bank renews its commitment to support countries' climate action plans. This book is the Bank's first attempt to look at insect and hydroponic farming as possible solutions to the world's climate and food and nutrition security crisis and may represent a new chapter in the Bank's evolving efforts to help feed and sustain the planet.
Lesotho Highlands Water Project: Communication Practices for Governance and Sustainability Improvement
by Leonardo Mazzei Lawrence J. M. Haas Donal O'LearyThis paper considers the multi-faceted lessons of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and how the project can serve as a model of mutually beneficial development, though demonstrating the benefits of a bilateral governmental cooperative approach in the development of an international river. These benefits include exceeding the impact of individual national approaches and strengthening political cooperation among all participants. This model is particularly relevant since approximately 40 percent of the world's population lives in transboundary river basins and more than 90 percent of the world's population lives within countries that share these basins.
The Little Data Book on Information and Communication Technology 2010
by World BankThis Little Data Book presents at-a-glance tables for over 140 economies showing the most recent national data on key indicators of information and communications technology (ICT), including access, quality, affordability, efficiency,sustainability, and applications.
The Little Data Book on Information and Communication Technology, 2012
by The World BankThis Little Data Book presents tables for over 213 economies showing the most recent national data on key indicators of information and communications technology (ICT), including access, quality, affordability, efficiency,sustainability, and applications.
Logged On
by Jody Zall Kusek Zubair K. Bhatti Tony VerheijenLogged On looks at mobile and smart phone technology through the lens of good government management. How will developing governments deliver goods and services that citizens care about? How will government in these countries leapfrog over traditional public management reforms to help reach out to and collaborate directly with the citizen? This book provides example after example where this has happened and how mobile technology has helped provide solutions to old problems. Our astounding revelation that mobile technology is helping to fight corruption in Pakistan, improve health delivery in Bangladesh, provide access to government by the ordinary citizen in India, and help monitor elections in Afghanistan. If this Is possible in some place in poor South Asian countries considered the most poor in the world, then how can these examples be spread to further in these counties or in other countries? Logged on Government provides a look back on conventional solutions that have mostly not worked and why mobile solutions are taking hold. The book offers a model called Smart Proactive Government based on a Feedback model being used in Punjab, Pakistan. The book also offers five solutions that are present in every successful mobile and smart phone example that the authors reviewed.
Low-Carbon Development for Mexico
by Claudio Alatorre Feng Liu Zayra Romo Todd M. JohnsonTo reduce the risk of climate change impacts it is necessary for the world to lower the carbon intensity of economic development. 'Low-Carbon Development for Mexico' estimates the net costs, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, and investment that would be needed to achieve a low-carbon scenario in Mexico to the year 2030. Among the key findings of the study are the following: Energy efficiency. Improving energy end-use efficiency in the industrial, residential, and public sectors is the least-cost option for reducing carbon emissions and can be achieved by accelerating current Mexican programs and policies. Supply efficiency and renewable energy. Mexico can lower the carbon intensity of the economy by improving the efficiency of energy supply in the electric power and petroleum industries, and by expanding the adoption of renewable energy technologies such as wind, biomass, small hydro, and geothermal. Public transport and vehicle fleet efficiency. Transport is the largest and fastest growing contributor of GHG emissions in Mexico, the majority of which comes from road transport. The greatest potential for reducing transport emissions lies with improving the quality and efficiency of urban transport, including more efficient vehicles and the design and organization of cities and public transport systems. Forestry - significant potential with large co-benefits. Measures to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), along with afforestation and commercial plantations, are among the largest GHG mitigation options in Mexico, and could provide numerous social and environmental benefits in rural areas. By undertaking a limited number of low-carbon interventions that are technologically and financially viable today, Mexico could hold carbon emissions relatively constant over the coming two decades while maintaining a vigorous rate of economic and social development. The costs of such a program would be relatively modest, but would require a range of regulatory and institutional changes to achieve, especially in the energy and transport sectors.
Options to Increase Access to Telecommunications Services in Rural and Low-Income Areas
by Juan Navas-Sabater Arturo Muente-KunigamiTelecommunications sector policy-makers and regulators have a wide range of instruments available to them that can be used to increase access to telecommunications services in rural and low-income areas. The paper provides a review of these instruments, evaluating them against a set of criteria. It then goes on to identify a number of them that are worthy of further consideration by policy-makers and regulators while demonstrating that the effectiveness of the identified instruments can be greatly enhanced by the establishment of a conducive legal, regulatory and institutional framework. The paper concludes by confirming that while no single instrument taken in isolation can provide a full solution to universal access, a mix of the measures identified can be devised to achieve specific policy objectives in a particular country environment.
Public Private Partnerships for Urban Water Utilities: A Review of Experiences in Developing Countries
by Philippe Marin'Public-Private Partnerships for Urban Water Utilities: A Review of Experiences in Developing Countries' analyzes the market growth of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the developing world since 1990, and the performance of more than 65 large water PPP projects-representing more than 100 million people-for access, service quality, operational efficiency, and tariff levels. Although a relatively small portion of the water utilities in the developing world are operated under PPPs (about 7 percent in 2007), the urban population served by private water operators has grown every year since 1990. Despite many difficulties encountered by PPP projects and a few contract terminations, a large majority of contracts awarded since 1990 are still in place. The track record for improving service and efficiency reaffirms the value of PPPs to help turn around poorly performing water utilities, even though the level of private financing did not match initial expectations. Over time, a more realistic market has developed, the number of private investors from developing countries has grown, and contract designs have become more pragmatic concerning risk allocations between partners. The water sector has many features that set it apart from other infrastructure sectors. This book suggests the need for careful consideration of those specificities to successfully involve private operators. Although concessions with private financing have worked in a few places, contractual arrangements that combine private operation with public financing appear to be the most sustainable option in many countries. Policy makers, stakeholders, and donors need to remain heavily engaged in the water sector, especially in the poorest countries and during a global financial crisis. This book contributes to a better understanding of the various options to tackle the many challenges of providing water and sanitation services to urban populations in the developing world.
Reaping Digital Dividends: Leveraging the Internet for Development in Europe and Central Asia
by Aleksandra Liaplina Shawn W. Tan Tim Kelly WinklerFrom East to West, the economies of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are not taking full advantage of the internet to foster economic growth and job creation. The residents of Central Asia and the South Caucasus pay some of the highest prices in the world for internet connections that are slow and unreliable. In contrast, Europe enjoys some of the world’s fastest and affordable internet services. However, its firms and individuals are not fully exploiting the internet to achieve higher productivity growth as well as more and better jobs. Reaping Digital Dividends investigates the barriers that are holding back the broader adoption of the internet in ECA. The report identifies the main bottlenecks and provides policy recommendations tailored to economies at varying levels of digital development. It concludes that policies to increase internet access are necessary but not sufficient. Policies to foster competition, international trade and skills supply, as well as adapting regulations to the changing business environment and labor markets, will also be necessary. In other words, Reaping Digital Dividends not only requires better connectivity, but also complementary factors that allow governments, firms and individuals to make the most out of it.
Renewable Energy Desalination
by Bekele Debele NegewoThe Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region is one of the most water stressed regions in the world. Water scarcity has already become a challenge to development in many of the countries. Due to increasing population and Projected climate change impacts, MENA's annual water demand gap is projected to grow five-fold by 2050, from today's 42 Km3 to 200 km3 by 2050. Despite its extreme scarcity, water is managed poorly. Inefficiencies are common in the agriculture, municipal and industrial systems; and many utilities are financially unsustainable. As a result, countries overexploit their fossil aquifers-and use desalination by fossil fuel-to meet the water demand gap. Desalination already plays a critical role in MENA's water supply portfolio. However, desalination is costly, energy intensive and has environmental impacts. On current trends, the projection is that, by 2050, Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the Region will consume for desalination most of the oil that they produce. Overexploitation of fossil aquifers is not sustainable. Neither is the use of fossil fuel for desalination to meet the growing water gap sustainable. This book outlines the challenges in terms of water (and also in terms of energy) that countries in the Region face and analyzes the scope of available options to address the growing water gap. The book estimates MENA's water gap today and into the future-until 2050; and presents a methodology to prioritize options to bridge the water gap, using the 'marginal cost of water' approach. The book also assesses the viability of renewable energy desalination as an important option to close the Region's water gap. The book compares the economic cost of desalination using fossil fuel and renewable energy sources, in particular the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). The book also provides recommendations as to how CSP based desalination could ensure sustainable water supply for the Region.
Science, Technology and Innovation in Uganda
by Sukhdeep Brar Robert Hawkins Sara E. Farley Caroline S WagnerScience, Technology and Innovation in Uganda is part of the World Bank Studies series. These papers are published to communicate the results of the Bank's ongoing research and to stimulate public discussion. This study presents a unique methodology to view science, technology and innovation (STI) in developing countries. The study provides a set of cases studies drawn from a diverse range of experiences across the Ugandan private sector and offers concrete policy recommendations on how to support broader development of STI in Uganda. The study finds that of all the STI challenges facing firms, universities, and public research organizations in Uganda, the barriers to collaboration and communication are the most urgent in terms of STI priorities to address in the coming years.
Strategic Environmental Assessment for Policies
by Kulsum Ahmed Ernesto Sanchez-TrianaEnvironmentally and socially sustainable policies are essential for good governance. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is the key tool for integrating environmental considerations into policies, programs and plans. This book focuses on SEA applied to policies. Through lessons learned from previous use of SEA on policies, it draws lessons on the strengths and weaknesses of current SEA methodology. It then goes on to analyze how policies are formulated and implemented and proposes a new conceptual framework for conducting SEA of policies thatpotentially could be more useful in influencing decision makers to integrate environmental sustainability considerations into policy formulation and implementation.