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            1. Macroeconomics

About the Macroeconomics Programme

Promoting conservation and sustainable development through a new approach to economic development

Policy makers often find themselves confronted with unanticipated social and environmental costs resulting from ostensibly "sensible" economic policies.

Incentives created to stimulate food production, for example, may disrupt rural communities and trigger soil depletion. Such paradoxes result from the fact that the standard practice of economics which today dominatespublic and private decision-making fails to take adequate account of social and environmental impacts.

The social and environmental costs of economic activities are treated as "externalities" largely irrelevant to the economic equation. Yet in the long term, these costs may undermine both the long-term growth and the social development that the economic policies intend to foster.

Recognizing the systemic character of economic policy failure and the implications of that failure for its conservation mission, WWF decided to dedicate significant resources to addressing the relationship between macroeconomics and the environment. In 1991, WWF established the Macroeconomics for Sustainable Development Program Office (MPO) to carry out this work.

The MPO Mission and Program Objectives

The MPO seeks to promote conservation and sustainable development through a new approach to economic development that integrates environmental sustainability and social equity into the formulation and application of development strategies at national and international levels.

In the service of this mission, MPO program work is guided by four objectives:

  • Contribute to the reform of current macroeconomic policies and practices of public organizations, both national and international, so as to integrate environmental sustainability and social equity into strategic planning and implementation;
  • Participate in the strengthening of emerging systems of formal and informal international environmental governance and environmental and financial agreements in order to ensure that their mandates and institutional procedures support sustainable development;
  • Influence the practices of selected private corporations and trade associations to develop more environmentally sustainable practices and to influence macroeconomic policies to encourage that behavior;
  • Enhance the ability of WWF to fulfill its strategic goals by increasing its capacity to address the socio-economic dimension of conservation.

Operational Objectives

MPO research must produce pragmatic and action-oriented policy recommendations that serve the twin purposes of sustainable development: improving the human condition and protecting nature's life-support systems.

MPO operational objectives:

  • Conduct action-oriented analysis and research to understand the deficiencies of current policies and market behavior;
  • Formulate and advocate improved policies that correct prevailing policy and market failures;
  • Forge working partnerships within WWF and with governments, international institutions, the private sector, and groups of civil society;
  • Build local capacity with partner organizations through training programmes, joint research, and policy formulation activities.

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