World Bank established Pollution Management and Environmental Health program

World Bank on 18 April 2015 established Pollution Management and Environmental Health (PHEM) program. The program was officially launched on Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day in Washington, D.C.

The 45 million US Dollar PMEH program will initially run from 2015 to 2020 and focus primarily on air quality management in countries facing rapid urbanization and strong needs for pollution abatement measures, but also tackle water and land pollution.

In particular, the program will focus on air quality management in five major urban areas in India, China, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa.

The PMEH program was backed by a new multi-donor trust fund. It was builds upon the knowledge of World Bank experts as well as internal and external stakeholders and partners to achieve three objectives:

•Support countries to significantly reduce air, land and water pollution levels through pollution management planning and investment to improve health,
•Generate new knowledge on pollution and its health impacts in urban, rural and marine areas,
•Promote awareness on this issue among policymakers, stakeholders and the public

Pollution contributes to the preventable deaths of an estimated 9 million people each year - most of them in developing countries.

An estimated 7 million people were killed by diseases related to indoor and outdoor air pollution alone in 2012 according to the World Health Organization

Comment

The World Bank has been committed in providing support to countries most severely impacted by pollution. Between 2009 and 2014, World Bank commitments (IBRD/IDA) to pollution management and environmental health totaled approximately 5 billion US dollar, with results spanning air pollution reduction in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, disposing safely of persistent organic pollutants in five countries in Africa, to easing pollution in China’s rivers.