In Latin America, improved efficiency stemming from the privatization of mining activities has sharply improved the management of tailings and wastewater. And in Egypt, recent technical assistance provided to improve the management of steel plants has transformed their environmental performance from among the worst to among the best in the developing world. Conversely, bad managers can wipe out the benefits of new technologies. Thousands of heavily polluting industrial plants around the world have purchased equipment incorporating expensive environmental technologies that is currently either unused or poorly maintained. The new environmentalism, therefore, gives strong emphasis to good housekeeping and managerial improvements and to the reform of public enterprises.
Most countries now seek to assess and mitigate potential damage from new infrastructural investment.
But it is now becoming clear that such activities may be carried out too late in the cycle to have optimum impact. Such sectoral environmental assessments are expected to become standard practice in the coming few years. Methodologies for carrying out such sectoral environmental assessments are still evolving, and a good deal of research is currently under way. Moving upstream in environmental policy is also occurring in the design of macroeconomic, trade, and fiscal policies. A recent World Bank review analyzes the experience of 12 such countries.