The Right Conditions : The World Bank, Structural Adjustment and Forest Policy Reform

Two contentious issues faced by the World Bank over the last decade or so have been its involvement in the forest sector and its structural adjustment lending.

This report addresses the intersection of these two areas by examining to what extent, and under what conditions, the World Bank can be an effective proponent of forest policy through adjustment lending.

The report focuses on experience in a few exceptional cases where the World Bank has explicitly excluded forest policy reform conditions in adjustment lending operations: Papua New Guinea, Cameroon and Indonesia.

In addition, the book includes an analysis of what happened in Kenya, where the World Bank proposed, but did not move forward on, an adjustment operation focused on environmental policy reform.