The Natural Environment in 
            Development and Well-Being 
                                
                   A World Vision Guide 
                                
                           May 2013 
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                 Natural Environment and Climate Issues 
                                        
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
        © World Vision International 2013  
         
        All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any 
        form, except for brief excerpts in reviews, without prior permission of the 
        publisher.  
         
        Published by Natural Environment and Climate Issues on behalf of World Vision 
        International  
         
        For further information about this publication or World Vision International 
        publications, or for additional copies of this publication, please contact 
        wvi_publishing@wvi.org.  
         
        Authors: Mary Morris, Christopher Shore, Natural Environment and Climate 
        Issues Community of Practice. Content editing: Rebecca Russell. Copyediting: 
        Katie Klopman. 
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        Contents  
        Executive Summary ..................................................................................................... 4 
        The Natural Environment in Development and Well-being ................................... 5 
        Why Is the Natural Environment Important in Child-focused Development? ...... 5 
         A Brief History of Development Thinking ............................................................. 6 
         Reassessing, Refocusing ............................................................................................ 7 
         The Development of World Vision Thinking ......................................................... 8 
         Looking to the Future ............................................................................................... 9 
         Incorporating Environment and Development: The Opportunity to Secure 
         Both .......................................................................................................................... 10 
         An Inconvenient Truth ........................................................................................... 12 
        A Logical Way Forward ............................................................................................. 13 
         An Unprecedented Opportunity ........................................................................... 14 
        What Is World Vision’s Role in  this Process? ......................................................... 15 
         Established and Readily Available Programming ................................................ 15 
         Additional Avenues to Bring On Line ................................................................... 16 
         Starting Now ............................................................................................................ 17 
        Annex: Terms as They Are Used in this Document ............................................... 18 
        Endnotes ...................................................................................................................... 21 
                       
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        Executive Summary  
        World Vision, because of our child focus, has a greater obligation than most organisations to take an 
        active interest in the health and resilience of natural resources and systems. It is not possible to 
        sustain child well-being in the absence of a healthy, effective natural environment. 
        Children's well-being is built on both the well-being of the environments that surround them and the 
        well-being of the people who care for, protect and guide them. In developing and poor contexts, the 
        well-being of caregivers and communities is intimately dependent on the well-being of their own 
        environments. It is possible, therefore, to significantly positively have an impact on both of these 
        major determinants of children’s well-being by securing or increasing the well-being of natural 
        environments.  
        The natural environment directly influences children’s well-being by playing significant roles in food 
        and nutrition, water and sanitation, disease and immunity, physical and mental development, and 
        hope and security. Indirectly, the natural environment influences well-being, especially the well-being 
        of children in developing and in poor contexts, by facilitating caregivers’ capacity to provide for 
        material needs, their ability to access educational and cultural resources for themselves and their 
        families, and the quality of caregivers’ physical and mental health. 
        Empowering caregivers to strengthen their natural environments, and thereby strengthen livelihoods, 
        food production and security of their resource base, empowers them to make life choices that most 
        protect and enhance their children’s well-being. High levels of well-being reduce pressure for 
        caregivers to make choices that harm children. Most families with the right knowledge and secure 
        resources work to create the best life possible for their children.  
        A healthy natural environment is the foundation of successful long-term development. International 
        development has evolved throughout its 50-plus years from a focus on saving lives alone to 
        facilitating progress out of conditions of chronic vulnerability and poverty into conditions supporting 
        ongoing, progressive well-being. In a world where the vast majority of people make their living from 
        their environments and where climate change increasingly places all of civilisation at risk, securing 
        healthy, productive environments is not optional but, rather, foundational to all developmental 
        transformation – especially for the most vulnerable countries and communities.  
        Today, every person in the world lives in a state of environmental consequences, and these 
        consequences will intensify if the state of the environment is not effectively – and very quickly – 
        addressed. The purpose of this paper is to clearly describe the critical need to make functioning 
        ecosystems a major development and relief priority. World Vision holds a responsibility to partner 
        with our hundreds of local communities across the globe to capitalise on this window of opportunity 
        to achieve multiple successes with each investment of money, time, effort and other resources.  
        Because the environment functions in intricately connected webs and cycles rather than on individual 
        or linear elements, problems involving the environment are complex and risky. However, for this 
        same reason every environmental intervention is likely to affect multiple systems – and multiple child 
        well-being outcomes. Many activities that reduce the degree of climate change involve restoring the 
        environment. By the grace – and the design – of God, these same activities also promote the well-
        being and development of poor communities. It is rare to get this sort of triple win, and it is critically 
        important to take advantage of such opportunities.  
        Nowhere else in development is this kind of complementarity, even synergy, as easily and as 
        inexpensively available. 
         
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