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MEDIA ADVISORY: Greening Aid: What is the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance?

JUNE 2008—Authors Discuss New Book on Global Environmental Aid at Wilson Center

WASHINGTON—Every year, billions of dollars of environmental aid flow from the rich governments of the North to the poor governments of the South. How effective is this aid? And does it go to the places with the greatest need?

Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance, a new book from Oxford University Press, explains major trends and shifts in environmental aid over the past two decades, rates donors' performance, and compares and contrasts types of environmental aid. The authors of Greening Aid have compiled one of the largest data sets of foreign aid ever assembled, spanning more than 400,000 development projects, 50 donors, and 170 recipient countries.

On June 11 at 3:00 p.m. at the Woodrow Wilson Center, several of the book's authors will discuss their answers to three central questions:

  • Which donor governments spend the most on foreign assistance for the environment and why?
  • Why do some donor governments delegate the allocation and implementation of environmental aid to multilateral agencies when they could allocate it themselves?
  • Why do some recipient countries receive more environmental aid than others?

RSVP/Watch Live Webcast

What: Greening Aid?: Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance

Who: Manish Bapna, World Resources Institute (opening remarks)
J. Timmons Roberts, College of William and Mary
Michael J. Tierney, College of William and Mary
Bradley C. Parks, Millennium Challenge Corporation
Robert Goodland, formerly of World Bank Group (discussant)

When: Wednesday, June 11, 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Where: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 6th Floor Flom Auditorium, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Media planning to cover the event should contact Sharon McCarter at sharon.mccarter@wilsoncenter.org or (202) 691-4016.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the living, national memorial to President Wilson established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a nonpartisan institution, supported by public and private funds, engaged in the study of national and world affairs.

Since 1994, the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program has explored the connections among environmental challenges and their links to conflict and security.

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