Abstract:
The World Bank or, in other words, World Bank Group is an international
finance institution whose primary goal is to decrease poverty and promote
sustainable development in third world countries. Other goals include
granting loans to governments for financing development projects, reform
of economic policy and technical support. World Bank involvement in terms
of environment protection is expressed by linking main tasks pertaining to
financing of economic development and reduction of poverty, taking into
account environmental issues.
The purpose of this article is to present the World Bank as a financial
institution which actively supports and promotes various types of activities on
behalf of sustainable development and environment protection. This article
presents issues which pertain to the establishment and the idea of World Bank
activity as well as characterizes functions of individual institutions which
belong to the World Bank Group. Subsequently, this article also discusses the
principles of financing of investments by the World Bank as well as presents
financial instruments that are utilized in this process. In addition, this article
depicts the conditions which must be fulfilled by the loaners.
The author also presents a detailed characteristics of World Bank activity
in terms of environment protection worldwide as well as in Poland. The author
also performed in-depth analysis of granted credits in the years 2005-2010,
based on the types of activities and destined targets.