World Bank: Global Campaign to Halve Extreme Poverty by 2015
------------------------------------------------------------
World Bank Calls for Global Campaign to Halve the Proportion of Peo-
ple in Extreme Poverty by 2015
BERLIN, April 2, 2001 - In remarks today at a public discussion forum
held by the German Bundestag, World Bank President James Wolfensohn
called on politicians to help launch a global campaign to meet the
international development goal of reducing the proportion of people
living in extreme poverty by half by 2015. " Never was there a better
time for such a campaign. Knowledge about what sustainable develop-
ment entails has never been better. The budgets of rich countries
have never been stronger. Technology has never been more dynamic. Our
goals have never been clearer. We must seize this moment. We must be
the first generation to think both as nationals of our countries and
as global citizens in an ever shrinking and more connected planet."
Addressing German politicians on "The Challenges of Globalization and
the Role of the World Bank," Wolfensohn reiterated his call for rich
countries to honor their commitments to devote 0.7 percent of their
yearly GDP to overseas aid. "Development assistance is not charity,
but a vital investment in global peace and security. Current levels
of foreign aid, he said, at some 0.24 percent of yearly GDP, fall far
short of the 0.7 percent target rich countries promised to meet. The
difference between these figures is worth a hundred billion dollars a
year. "It is a supreme irony that just at the time when African lead-
ers are putting the right policies in place and are showing results,
overseas aid to Africa has fallen from $32 per head in 1990 to $18 a
head in 1998. We must reverse that trend."
Outlining the World Bank's agenda in low and middle-income countries,
and at the global level, Wolfensohn said, " We need to make global-
ization work for all. Our challenge is to make globalization an in-
strument of opportunity and inclusion - not of fear and insecurity.
We need to help put in place safety nets for the vulnerable, as we
are doing around the world, and work with governments to focus on
education, health and nutrition. We need to step up the fight against
AIDS and malaria and TB, and work with governments to meet their ba-
sic infrastructure needs - clean potable water, and sanitation."
Wolfensohn made it clear that the Bank would continue to work in mid-
dle income countries. "Eighty percent of the world's poor live in
middle income countries. Let there be no mistake, we are not about to
turn our back on them." Helping these countries meet their develop-
ment challenges, he said, is central to the Bank's overarching mis-
sion of tackling global poverty.
Wolfensohn called for rich countries to lower their barriers to de-
veloping country exports. "I believe that the Bank has a major role
to play in working towards a level trading field for developing coun-
tries" he said. "We must work to ensure that this next trade round
will be a Development Round. Rich countries must get serious on
trade. Barriers to developing country exports in industrialized mar-
kets continue to severely disadvantage poor countries. Industrialized
countries spend more than $300 billion a year on agricultural subsi-
dies. That is roughly equal to the total GNP for all of sub-Saharan
Africa. Today tariffs on meat, fruits and vegetables can exceed 100
percent in the developed world. Debt relief without increased market
access is a sham."
Wolfensohn said that the Bank was better positioned than ever to work
with partners in the fight against poverty. "Over the last few years
our development impact - our most important bottom line - has im-
proved dramatically. The quality of our portfolio is at its highest
level in two decades - which by itself translates into billions of
dollars in more effective development spending for the people we
serve". As measured by the independent Operations Evaluation Depart-
ment, project effectiveness has gone up from 66 percent in 1996 to 77
percent today - an impressive figure, he said, for an institution
whose core business - development - always involves considerable
risk.
But, he said, the challenges ahead were enormous. "Today half the
world's population live on less than $2 a day; 80 percent of the
global population has only 20 percent of global GDP; and within each
country, there is a massive imbalance between rich and poor. But the
challenge does not end there. Over the next 25 years, 2 billion peo-
ple will be added to the planet, almost all of them in the developing
world. We will go from a world of 6 billion people, to a world of 8
billion people - with maybe over 6 � billion living in the developing
world. How many people will be condemned to live on under $2 a day
then? How the international community answers that question will be
the key determinant of whether our children will live in a peaceful
world or a world of rising conflict" he said.
Outlining the importance of country ownership of reform programs and
country-driven development, Wolfensohn said, "We also need to push
ahead with streamlining conditionality, focusing more on the outcomes
and less on itemizing what steps a government must take to reach
them. We know that no amount of conditions can replace domestic com-
mitment to reform." He said that the Bank's new instrument, the Pov-
erty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC), by focusing on programmatic
lending, would reduce conditionality. (Courtesy of Eberhard Wenzel)
LAUDABLE! ...BUT CAN YOU FIND THE (many) CONTRADICTIONS?
Claudio Schuftan
Hanoi, Vietnam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn
--
Send mail for the `AFRO-NETS' conference to `<afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org>'.
Mail administrative requests to `<majordomo@usa.healthnet.org>'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `<owner-afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org>'.