Striking the Balance

The World Resources Institute report 'Striking the Balance' provides guidance for investors in developing countries on designing social and environmental safeguard policies that balance accountability with recipient-country ownership. It outlines eight specific recommendations for investors and analyzes four risk management approaches used by the World Bank.

• The report provides eight recommendations for investors to balance ownership and accountability in social and environmental policies: utilizing recipient-country laws and institutions, maintaining strong safeguard policies as examples, researching the actual strengths and weaknesses of recipient systems, engaging in consistent collaboration with governments and stakeholders, investing in human resources for both parties, providing proper incentives for staff, creating clear requirements focused on substantive results, and supporting citizen engagement.
• Investors, including private banks, companies, public funds, and international financial institutions, are facing increased global pressure to ensure economic growth does not cause social or environmental harm, particularly as many governance systems in developing countries remain inadequate for protecting people and natural resources.
• The report examines the World Bank's experiences with four distinct approaches to managing the relationship between its own social and environmental risk management systems and those of recipient countries: the traditional safeguards approach, the "use of country systems" approach, the "program for results" investments approach, and the approach for development policy loans.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Striking the Balance. https://www.wri.org/research/striking-balance

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Striking the Balance. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/striking-balance.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Striking the Balance |url=https://www.wri.org/research/striking-balance |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendstriking, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Striking the Balance}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/striking-balance}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }