The World Resources Report is the result of a unique 20-year partnership among the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Resources Institute.

WRR has recently extended this partnership to include several bilateral institutions, including the international development agencies of the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and the United States. One of the most important aspects of this wide circle of partners is that the Report provides these important international institutions with a platform upon which to present an integrated voice on policy recommendations.

The WRR, in its most recent volumes, has addressed the important linkages between development, the environment and governance. World Resources 2000-2001 People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life examined the essential role played by natural resources in 20th century human existence. The Report provided the impetus behind the landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment completed in 2005.

World Resources 2002-2004: Decisions for the Earth: Balance, Voice and Power argued that better environmental governance, based on greater participation and access to information, leads to fairer and more sustainable use of natural resources galvanized the Partnership for Principle 10, which has now developed into a global platform for governments, international organizations, and NGOs to increase participation in environmental and development decisions.

In the most recent Report World Resources 2005 The Wealth of the Poor: Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty, we argued that poverty and the environment are inextricably linked, that the world’s rural poor could enhance their livelihoods by capturing greater value from ecosystems. The unavoidable reality is that three quarters of the poorest in the world, numbering almost one billion, live in rural areas; they are dependent on their natural resources for their livelihood, whatever their condition.

Our thesis was that income from sustainably managed ecosystems can act as a stepping stone in the economic empowerment of the poor. But this can only happen when poor households are able to reap the benefits of their good ecosystem stewardship. Governance, in the form of tenure reform, can create the self-interest that leads to an improved natural resource base, be it agriculture, forestry or fishing.

Unfortunately, an array of governance failures usually stands in the way: lack of secure access to ecosystems, political marginalization, and exclusion from the decisions that affect how ecosystems are managed. Unlocking the economic potential of ecosystems to reduce rural poverty means tackling these obstacles.

World Resources Report 2008, Roots of Resilience: Growing the Wealth of the Poor continues the focus on poverty and the environment. The reality of global poverty is that it is rural and it is persistent: three-quarters of the 2.6 billion people living on less than $2 per day—almost 2 billion— live in rural areas; that number is virtually unchanged in 20 years.

World Resources 2008 argues that successfully scaling up environmental income for the poor requires three elements: it begins with ownership—a foundation of good governance that both transfers to the poor real authority over local resources and elicits local demand for better management of these resources.

Making good on this demand requires building local capacity for development-in this case, the capacity of local communities to manage ecosystems competently, carry out ecosystem-based enterprises, and distribute the income from these enterprises fairly.

The third element is establishing adaptive networks that connect and nurture nature-based enterprises, giving them the ability to adapt, learn, connect to markets, and mature into businesses that can sustain themselves and enter the economic mainstream.

The result is communities with increased resilience: economic, social and environmental. Such outcomes take on added import as it becomes increasingly clear that the impacts of climate change are likely to have their biggest effect on those areas where most of the world’s poor live: drylands, low-latitude geographies and high-stress watersheds.