In 1997, the World Resources Institute and World Wildlife Fund initiated the International Financial Flows and the Environment (IFFE) Project with support from the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund. The IFFE Project began with a strategic planning phase to assist WRI, WWF, and the wider public interest community to reassess research agendas, institutional foci, and advocacy strategies in light of dramatic changes in transboundary financial flows and the roles of relevant institutions over the last few years.

Early project activities included a series of brainstorming sessions and interviews designed to identify the most important questions raised by recent changes in the landscape and political economy of development finance, and assess progress toward answering them.

Drawing on the results of this initial scoping effort, the project commissioned a set of "think pieces," country case studies, a survey of the community, and other background research, and hosted several seminars to discuss their results.

"Go with the Flows?" attempts to synthesize the key findings of the IFFE Project\'s strategic planning effort, and their implications for the community of public interest organizations concerned about environment and development issues. The paper draws selectively upon papers commissioned by the IFFE Project and independently by the Mott Foundation, which are listed in Annexes A and B, respectively. The analysis is also informed by insights offered by participants in the brainstorming sessions, interviews, survey, and seminars.

The intended audience for the paper is the relatively small community of public interest organizations and their funders seeking to influence the environmental sustainability of development paths in developing and transition economies. While the paper focuses on opportunities for groups based in the United States, their roles are not separable from those of partners based in other industrialized countries and in the developing/transition world. The paper assumes some knowledge of the significant efforts and achievements of that community’s attempts to reform public international financial institutions over the last decade, and the trade and environment community\'s engagement in international trade fora, but is written for the non-specialist.

The public interest community is already responding to changes in the patterns and politics of development finance, so some of the recommendations contained herein have been superceded by events. It is hoped that its content will nevertheless prove useful for those organizations facing strategic choices in the allocation of scarce human, financial, and political capital to promote environmental sustainability in the developing world.