I am very pleased that the Board of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) adopted on 21 February 2006 new environmental and social standards as well as a new disclosure policy for the organization. While this marks the end of a lengthy process...it also is the beginning of a new challenge: the implementation of the standards...Investment officers are being trained on the standards, and IFC now has an incentive program that rewards them for projects that demonstrate strong developmental impact over the long term. But we must also make sure that our client companies have the capacity to implement the requirements of the new standards...Most banks that finance projects also apply IFC’s safeguards and we hope that they will decide to upgrade to the new standards as well. These financial institutions are called the Equator Banks and there are now 41 of them, covering more than 80 percent of global project finance. IFC will provide training and support to the Equator Banks.