ABSTRACT
The World Bank, according to Ian Johnson, Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, must help create a sustainable future. Before the concept of sustainable development, World Bank progress indicators reflected society’s past achievements, whereas sustainable development indicators must anticipate what society desires for its future (the quantities of greenhouse gases emitted by national economies based on fossil fuels is a sustainable development indicator, for instance). In a world whose population will double in the next five years, the World Bank cannot repeat its past mistakes, where money awarded to a country often ended up in the wrong hands or did not benefit those in need. Johnson says that, now, when the Bank makes misjudgements, they hear about it on the Internet. Now, he says, they have to get money to people rather than to governments.
