Pollution

Industrialization, use of pesticides and nitrogen-based fertilizers, crop residues in agriculture, urbanization, forest fires, desert dust, and inadequate waste management have intensified environmental health risks and pollution, especially in low- and middle-income countries. At the same time, the global economy relies on deeply intertwined supply chains, sustained by more than 100 billion tons of raw materials entering the system each year. Intensive material consumption depletes natural resources and causes negative environmental impacts at every stage of the product lifecycle including production, use phase, and end-of-life. Global waste is expected to increase to 3.4 billion tons by 2050.

Pollution of all types hinder development outcomes. Air pollution, exposure to lead and other chemicals, and hazardous waste including exposure to improper e-waste disposal, cause debilitating and fatal illnesses, create harmful living conditions, and destroy ecosystems. Pollution stunts economic growth, exacerbates poverty and inequality in both urban and rural areas, and significantly contributes to climate change. Poor people, who cannot afford to protect themselves from the negative impacts of pollution, end up suffering the most.

Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death. Pollution causes more than 9 million premature deaths, the majority of them due to air pollution. That’s several times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Global health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are reminders of the strong linkages between environment and health and of the need to address such linkages systematically.

Air pollution is the leading environmental risk to health, causing 7 million premature deaths each year. This is equivalent to the number of people that have died from COVID-19 since March 2020. A recent World Bank publication found that air pollution cost the globe an estimated $8.1 trillion in 2019, equivalent to 6.1 percent of global GDP. More than 95 percent of deaths caused by air pollution occur in low- and middle- income countries. In individual countries, the economic burden of pollution associated with premature mortality and morbidity is also significant, equivalent to 5 to 14 percent of countries' GDPs.

Recent evidence points to the similar devastation caused by exposure to harmful chemicals, such as lead. In 2019, more than 5.5 million adults died from cardiovascular disease arising from lead exposure. 90% of these deaths occurred in lower- and middle-income countries. In the same year, children younger than 5 years of age lost 765 million IQ points. Lead exposure cost countries $6 trillion, equivalent to 6.9% of global GDP.

Indeed, individual studies for Argentina, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Lao PDR, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria,  Pakistan, Peru, Slovakia, Ghana and Vietnam, at national and subnational levels, suggest that the costs of pollution-related diseases are mainly due to outdoor and household air pollution, and exposure to lead and other chemicals.

It is critical to address pollution because of its unacceptable toll on health and human capital, as well as associated GDP losses. Pollution management offers no-regrets options that can alleviate poverty, boost shared prosperity, and address the vital demands of millions of people for healthier and more productive lives. Pollution management can also make substantial contributions to climate change mitigation through actions such as reduction of black carbon and methane emissions, which contribute to both air pollution and climate change. In addition, pollution management can enhance competitiveness, for example, through job creation, better energy efficiency, improved transport, and sustainable urban and rural development.

Last Updated: Sep 19, 2023

The World Bank Group supports developing countries and development partners in reducing pollution, promoting clean development, and fostering a more circular economy for healthier lives and better livelihood opportunities. The Bank provides technical assistance, financing, and knowledge products that cover:

• improving air quality through the reduction of indoor/outdoor air pollution;
• improving water quality, both in freshwater and in oceans;
• integrating management of waste, including hazardous waste management and remediation of contaminated sites;
• reducing short lived climate pollutants for climate change mitigation;
• promoting environmental sustainability through cleaner production and pollution prevention; and
• strengthening environmental institutions by helping countries improve environmental governance, regulation, and enforcement.

In 2014, the World Bank established a Multi-donor Trust Fund for Pollution Management and Environmental Health (PMEH-MDTF) to promote more systematic and effective responses to deadly and costly  pollution in selected low income countries including China, Egypt, Ghana, India, Nigeria, South Africa and Vietnam. The Trust Fund closed in June of 2022.

Air pollution makes up an important part of our work. The Bank supports countries across the world improve air quality, which often entails addressing the complex drivers and consequences of air pollution as well. For example, in China, the World Bank has been supporting Hebei Province to reduce concentration of air pollutants and increase energy efficiency and clean energy use in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The Bank is also supporting the Government of Egypt with the $200 million Greater Cairo Air Pollution Management and Climate Change Project, which will be transformational in developing a framework for the country that integrates planning for both climate issues and air-quality management. In cities like Mexico City (Mexico), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Hanoi (Vietnam), and Johannesburg (South Asia) policies aimed at reducing pollution have produced tangible health benefits for people of all backgrounds.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the Bank is supporting environmental health concerns by preventing the exposure of humans and the environment to harmful chemicals and waste. A regional Global Environment Facility (GEF) grant in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Zambia, and Tanzania helps prevent exposure to unintentional Persistent Organic Pollutants (uPOPs) from open burning of wastes and to mercury in Artisanal Small-scale Mining (ASGM). In the East African Community, governments consider e-waste as a serious emerging problem, despite their expansion of digital technology investments to support energy efficiency. The Bank is providing technical assistance in e-waste management, regulatory frameworks, and capacity building.

The World Bank is also placing a strong emphasis on marine litter management. There is broad consensus on the set of solutions: such as stopping leakages through improved waste management and reductions in the upstream production of waste, including  single-use plastics. In Zanzibar and Tanzania, the Bank supports governments to achieve a broader set of urban management and integrated coastal zone management goals. Activities include both upstream (generation of waste and circular economy) and downstream (disposal of solid waste and cleaning marine hotspots). The $220 million West Africa Coastal Areas (WACA) Program builds communities’ resilience by fighting erosion, inundation, and pollution along the coast of six countries.

Industrial activities often lead to an increase in exposure to chemicals and toxic materials and polluted lands. Though this is well known, lack of data tends to beget lack of attention. Accordingly, the World Bank has worked to increase identification of toxic sites and research the health and economic impacts of these sites. Providing greater clarity and evidence about the links between toxic waste, economic impact, and health is crucial to empowering officials to make decisions to lessen the negative environmental outcomes of industrialization.

Traditionally air, water and land-based pollution has been tackled after the fact, through clean-up efforts, but the solution must be in addressing its root causes. These lie in the dominant “take, make, waste” linear economy, fueled by large amounts of cheap, accessible energy and other resources, and producing goods that are designed to be disposable. The circular economy is a redesign of this approach, where industrial and natural resource-based production systems are restorative and regenerative by intention. The Bank is promoting circular economy, resource efficiency, and sustainable markets in various sectors (such as textile and apparel, agribusiness, and construction materials) and eco-industrial parks (including industrial symbiosis and water circularity). 

Analytical work

Working jointly with client countries, the Bank also carries out analytical work to identify environmental priorities for poverty alleviation. Recent analytical work conducted by the Bank assessed the global estimates of the health burden of outdoor air pollution and the implications for low- and middle-income countries. Another study addressed opportunities and challenges for air quality data gaps in low- and middle-income countries. Other analytical work has assessed the performance of satellite for air quality measurements in low- and middle-income countries; as well as the health implications of exposure to natural dust and chemical constituents and sources of fine particulate matter. In addition, interventions for reducing air pollution have been developed along with work that addresses the linkages between pollution, health, climate change and fiscal solutions.

For instance, in the Western Balkan countries of North Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, analytical work conducted by the World Bank assesses the cost of ambient air pollution in the individual countries. In the Republic of Slovakia, Bank-supported analytical work provided an estimate of the health impacts of air pollutants in the country across its 72 districts and evaluates the benefits of measures to reduce concentrations of pollutants relative to the costs of such measures.

In Africa, the World Bank conducted analytical work to identify, assess and prioritize interventions for Air Quality Management in Ethiopia and in Lagos, Nigeria, as well as Solid Waste Management in Rwanda, in green value chain measures for industrial pollution control in the Lake Victoria Basin. 

Analytical work has also been instrumental to help set environmental priorities, identifying the categories of environmental degradation that are more closely linked with poverty reduction and economic growth. This approach has been applied in Yucatan (Mexico), and Lao PDR, where analytical work has informed investments, policy reforms, and capacity building interventions to address environmental priorities.  

Other key reports and studies on pollution include:

• Pollution Management and the making of prosperous cities
• What a waste 2.0

Last Updated: Apr 04, 2023

Air quality

In Bangladesh, the Bank is helping to improve air quality and safe mobility in Dhaka by strengthening air quality monitoring and modernizing brick making and urban transport. Carbon emission reduction credits generated with Bank support are helping to improve working conditions, to protect people’s health and to provide better pay for workers.

In Mali, the Obsolete Pesticides Disposal and Prevention Project disposed of 532 tons of obsolete pesticides and toxic waste between 2014 and 2018. In Cote d’Ivoire, 329 tons of Obsolete Pesticides and Associated Waste (OPAWs) were successfully collected, transported, stored, and destroyed with the support of the Bank through the Obsolete Pesticides Management Project, including the funding of the elaboration of laws on the transport, storage, and disposal of pesticides to ensure the country's sustainable management of pesticides.

With support from the World Bank’s $1 billion loans for Innovative Financing for Air Pollution Control and Hebei Air Pollution Prevention and Control, the concentration of PM_2.5 was reduced by nearly 40 percent across the Hebei province of China between 2013 and 2017, and the use of clean heating reduced annual carbon dioxide emissions by six million tons, equivalent to taking 1.2 million gasoline passenger vehicles off the road per year.

In Lao PDR, the Bank supports the establishment of a stronger regulatory framework to reduce the use of prohibited pesticides and establish stringent ambient air quality standards. A separate Bank-supported project assisted the Government of Lao PDR with monitoring air quality in pollution hotspots and publicly disclosing monitoring results.

Through an investment loan in Peru the Bank supported a project to develop environmental information systems that included expanding the country's air quality monitoring network to six new cities (Trujillo, Chiclayo, Iquitos, Huancayo, Cusco and Piura). The project also funded the construction of a government laboratory to test samples from its stations and to provide calibration and quality control of third-party labs.

Water pollution

The Bank is assisting Argentina with an ambitious integrated plan for the cleanup and sustainable development of the Matanza-Riachuelo River basin. The project is building a large wastewater collector on the left bank of the Riachuelo River, which will transport sewage to different treatment plants, thereby avoiding direct discharge into the river. The project is also constructing an 11.5-kilometer outfall that will lead to Río de la Plata. Additionally, the Integral Sanitation Plan will expand and/or build several treatment plants throughout the basin and construct waterfall aeration stations. These large-scale engineering works are crucial for the health of 7 million people living in the area, of whom at least 10 percent live below the national poverty line.

In Brazil, the Bank is supporting the state of Sao Paolo to address water scarcity challenges by providing incentives to increase use efficiency and to treat wastewater, thus reducing pollution and improving water quality.

In Romania, under the World Bank-supported Integrated Nutrient Pollution Control Project rural communities around the country are being equipped with essential tools needed to improve livestock manure management and prevent nitrates and other dangerous minerals from contaminating Romania’s soil and water supplies.

More results:

Matanza-Riachuelo River basin Sustainable Development Project

India National Ganga River Basin Project

Lebanon Lake Qaraoun Pollution Prevention Project

Togo: Urban Infrastructure Project

Vietnam: Coastal Cities Sustainable Environment Project

Other project examples on marine pollution can be found here.

Management of Land-based Pollution and Remediation of Hazardous Waste Sites

Recent analytical work conducted by the Bank, includes the identification of the types of industries contributing to land-based pollution in low- and- middle income countries and highlights knowledge and data gaps that have hindered a fuller understanding of this issue. For instance, the Bank has conducted risk-assessment and risk-management approaches and tools for identifying, prioritizing, and mitigating land-based pollution in LMICs and develop a framework for collecting samples and assess health impacts. The Bank’s analytical work on land-based pollution has also supported the creation and improvement of the global toxic site database. The database will increase understanding of drivers of chemical pollution and help officials make informed decisions.

The Montenegro Industrial Waste Management and Cleanup Project is helping to remediate industrial waste disposal sites and ensure that hazardous waste from industries is disposed in compliance with Montenegrin and European Union legislation.  The project supports strengthening of the regulatory framework and development of infrastructure to provide environmentally acceptable solutions for waste management.

The China: Hunan Integrated Management of Agricultural Land Pollution Project is demonstrating a risk-based approach to manage heavy metal pollution in agricultural land.  The project is also strengthening agricultural environmental monitoring and management and includes training activities tailored to the needs of government officials, environmental monitoring staff, and farmers.

In Pakistan the Bank is financing a green growth project in Punjab that has included the implementation of waste management interventions. The project has supported reforms to modernize the legal and regulatory framework and promote investments in cleaner technologies at the provincial level to reduce air and water pollution from sectors such as brick making and leather tanning.

In Bangladesh, the Bank is supporting microenterprises to increase the adoption of environmentally sustainable practices. While production and revenues have decreased with COVID-19, there have been businesses that have managed to adapt to the crisis. For instance, some mini-garment microenterprises repurposed production to produce masks and other Protective Personal Equipment to meet newfound demand due to COVID-19.

Indonesia and Senegal are improving solid waste management services and will include financing of infrastructure for collection, transfer, treatment, disposal, and waste recycling/composting. In addition, interventions will help strengthen sector governance and institutional capacity, including support to ensure the sustainability of solid waste management operations. 

The Bank is supporting Zambia reduce environmental health risks, including from exposure to lead and strengthening the institutional capacity to manage and regulate chemicals. The project focuses on local populations living in critically polluted mining areas, particularly in the Kabwe Municipality.

More Results:

China Contaminated Site Management Project

Indonesia Improvement of Solid Waste Management to Support Regional and Metropolitan Cities Project

Lebanon Environmental Pollution Abatement Project

Senegal Municipal Solid Waste Management Project

Circular Economy

A portfolio of 35 projects have supported reforms in industries, value chains, the tourism sector, entrepreneurship, small and medium enterprises, public-private partnerships, and utilities. More recently, efforts have promoted access to finance to pilot resource efficiency, cleaner production, and green growth to enhance competitiveness and jobs.

Fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies are key obstacles to the circular economy. By artificially lowering the cost of fossil fuels, subsidies promote wasteful consumption and result in increased pollution and waste. Subsidies also lower the cost of oil-based products, like plastic, putting substitutes from renewable sources at a disadvantage. The Bank’s Energy Subsidy Reform Assessment Framework is a comprehensive analytical toolkit and assessment framework for helping countries to achieve politically and socially sustainable reforms. It includes specific guidance on how to estimate the local and global environmental benefits that could be achieved by phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels.

Several analytical studies on the topic of circular economy have been developed. In China, the Bank identified opportunities for circularity in the solid waste sector, as well as recommended further actions the government should take to enhance the effectiveness of its efforts towards circular economy.  Similarly, a study assessed the need for greening Pakistan’s industrial sector to minimize adverse impacts on the environment and society and provided recommendations to promote a sustainable industrial development pathway.

Last Updated: Sep 19, 2023