U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer (finansminister) Gordon Brown said Monday that poverty in nations outside the industrial world is encouraging terrorism and he urged countries to boost their foreign aid budgets, the World Bank press review reports.
– Poverty is a breeding ground for discontent, Brown said in an interview in London for an ITV documentary series adding: – There is a sense of injustice. We have got to act if we are going to avoid the development of terrorist cells.
The comments add to the British Labour governments argument that rich nations must pay more to cure disease and spur economic growth in Africa and Asia.
Brown is struggling to win backing for his International Finance Facility, which would double to 100 billion US dollar (583 milliarder DKR) the cash available for relieving debts of the worlds poorest nations.
In the interview for the documentary titled “The New World War”, Brown said the penalty for failing to help poor nations may be more attacks in the West. The comments are his most explicit yet linking poverty and terrorism.
– Poverty is no excuse for terrorism. Some of the terrorists that are most famous now are themselves very rich people. What is lacking is the political will to translate a commitment that has been made by everybody to reality, Brown said.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn, speaking on the same program, echoed Browns view and said the world will be a more dangerous place in the next generation.
– What are our children going to do if half the planet cannot get a job, cannot have a family, are frustrated in everything that they are trying to do and who are knowledgeable today about what is happening. Frustration and a lack of hope will drive instability, Wolfensohn said.
U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to make forming a strategy to bolster the economic fortunes of African nations a priority when Britain hosts meetings of the Group of Eight nations (G8) next year.
Further, terrorism, climate change and world poverty are inextricably linked. – We must conquer them before they destroy us, argues broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby in “The New World War: A Reporters Personal View”, The Observer reports.
– We live in a world where 1 billion people have 80 per cent of the wealth and where 5 billion have just 20 per cent. That alone should encourage a certain missionary zeal to bring hope to the desperate, as World Bank President James Wolfensohn recently put it.
– We must not be blind to the forces of despair that encourage despotism, fanaticism and instability. Without dealing with that question of poverty, there can not be any peace, Wolfensohn warned.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
