Local participation, international politics, and the environment: The World Bank and the Grenada Dove

Stakeholders, the natural environment and the future of Caribbean cruise tourism

“…Marine activities are an important focus for Caribbean tourism (Miller andAuyong, 1991, cited in Orams, 1999) and as a consequence the region faces a variety of environmental challenges, including marine pollution, waste disposal and general degradation from tourism (Rosenberg and Korsmo, 2001). This naturally generates tension between the region's stakeholders and, with Caribbean ports being urged to deepen their harbours to accommodate the 'mega cruise-ships', it is inevitable that conflict has arisen between the need to retain the pristine nature of the Caribbean waters against the desire for increasing economic benefits from cruise tourism.…”

“…However, external funding can provide the incentive for action, as evidenced in the case of the Wider Caribbean Initiative for Ship Generated Solid Wastes Project. As reported by the Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic Development (CGCED), this project was part funded with a $5.5m grant from the World Bank, via the Global Environment Facility (for a detailed account of the project see Rosenberg and Korsmo (2001)). Also within the region, other initiatives such as Blue Flag beaches and Green Globe 21 certification schemes have been utilised in order to promote sustained and sensitive development of the natural environment (CGCED, 2000).…”

A participatory approach to conservation in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Campeche, Mexico

“…Today this approach, originally designed to avoid the limitations of top-down, blueprint-style planning and large-scale research techniques has become standard practice in many fields including biodiversity conservation. Donor organizations such as the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility 1 that provide bil- 1 The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is an independent financial organization that helps developing countries fund projects and lions of dollars to both biodiversity conservation, rural and urban development programs in some of the world's poorest areas have revised their strategies to recommend public participation and consultation with affected populations in project assessment and implementation (Rosenberg and Korsmo, 2001). However, in many cases the concept of participation is only vaguely defined and applied without rigor (Little, 1994).…”

Controlling the World Bank and IMF

“…And although the move towards grant giving by the Bank has ameliorated the disbursal imperative, the inability to rapidly demonstrate a quantifiable impact from the promotion of stakeholder engagement on economic growth continues to limit key veto-players' receptiveness to the practice. In addition, staff continue to traverse an 'apolitical tightrope' in relation to stakeholder engagement; there is an ever-present danger that Country Directors, mindful of maintaining good relations with borrower governments, will simply remove aspects of policy-loan agreements that they consider to be too overtly political (Rosenburg andKorsmo 2001: 297, Weaver 2008: 117-20). Although these micro-level disincentives make the 'participatory turn' in project lending problematic, there is a feeling amongst some staff that the bonds of the 'disbursal imperative' may be weakening, with attempts to look beyond governments and to creatively engage with wider domestic stakeholders becoming more actively rewarded in staff appraisals.…”