In an interview with German daily Berliner Zeitung, World Bank President James Wolfensohn discusses the Millennium Development Goals, the Tsunami disaster, development aid, terrorism, and Iraq.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Mr. Wolfensohn, briefly after you were appointed on 1 June 1995 as head of the World Bank, you set many goals, and one of your most ambitious goals was to reduce world poverty. Did you succeed?
WOLFENSOHN: Yes and no. We put many projects into existence, which improved the standards of living of many people. In China, for example, we helped bring hundreds of thousands of Chinese down from mountain villages to arable fields. We have influenced projects in many countries, which have helped and have given people the chance of a better future.
But no matter how successful we are with individual projects, it is not enough. Five billion people still live in developing countries, half of them must live on less than two dollars a day. Eight hundred million of them are 14 years old or younger.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Can you imagine how it feels when someone must get by on two dollars a day?
WOLFENSOHN: Yes, I can. I come from very modest circumstances. My family did not have much money, but it was not the poverty I have seen in the past ten years in Africa. I had an education. I was poor for Australian standards, but rich when compared to people in Africa.
I believe I understand poverty. I spend a third of my time on social issues. I am a member of the Rockefeller Councils, one of the first international environmental summits in Stockholm. The topics poverty and development assistance have not only recently become an interesting issue for me. They have been part of my life for thirty years. I always thought about the problem and tried to help. In the past ten years I did it seven days a week.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Your critics nevertheless asked more than once whether a man like you, a former investment banker with a private airplane and four houses, understands what poverty really means. What do you answer them?
WOLFENSOHN: I tell them it is nonsense. I use my private airplane to travel to the slums. I do not use it to fly to the Cote dAzur or German tourist destinations. Recently, I traveled by plane to Cambodia, Laos and Yemen, which are not really the favorite holiday destinations of the world’s bankers. The only advantage of a private airplane, when compared to public transport, is that it is more efficient and takes less time.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: The European Commission and the boss of UNDP recently realized that it is possible to reach one Millennium Development Goal: halving world poverty. Do you share this opinion?
WOLFENSOHN: We will achieve this goal because poverty decreased in China and India. But this does not apply to Africa. In Africa, poverty does not decrease, it increases. These are our true concerns.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Then reaching the goal is actually an illusion?
WOLFENSOHN: Yes. It is an illusion. If one succeeds in helping 400 million people in China get out of poverty then it waters down the numbers.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Did the Tsunami disaster contribute to the fact that the goal will not be reached?
WOLFENSOHN: Hardly. When one takes into account the number of missing people, then about 290.000 people were killed, thousands of villages were destroyed, and one million people have lost their homes. But even in Indonesia, which faces the largest loss with 220.000 killed and missing people, the number is still imaginable given that the country has a population of 250 million.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: The United Nations proclaimed 2005 the year of microcredit. Has this anything to do with the Tsunami disaster?
WOLFENSOHN: No. One has to consider the perspective. The wave is a very tragic incident through which nature showed how strong it is. Ten thousands of people were washed away into the sea and there is nothing left. This emptiness – it was a terrible sight. And terrible is also that the disaster left ten thousands of orphans.
But AIDS in Africa also has turned ten million children into orphans, and we lost nearly 40 million people to the disease. The war in Congo has taken three million lives. For the Western press, however, the Tsunami disaster is more interesting because many Western holiday-makers disappeared – particularly in Phuket.
Hundreds of Germans are still missing. This is why the Tsunami is so important to Germany or Sweden or Great Britain. But then nobody reports about the victims of the war in Congo.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Does that frustrate you?
WOLFENSOHN: Yes. It is terrible. The industrial countries still believe that what happens in countries like Congo does not concern them. This is wrong, and this attitude becomes more and more dangerous. Today five out of six billion people live in developing countries, owning 20 percent of world-wide income. In 50 years, eight out of nine billion people will live in developing countries. We, however, do not care and choose to walk the old path.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: What are we doing wrong?
WOLFENSOHN: We do not pay attention to substantial changes. Each year, we spend a thousand billion dollars on armament. The defense expenditures in the US alone amount to more than 450 billion US dollar. At the same time, the entire world spends 60 billion dollar on development assistance, of which only 35 billion dollar are paid in cash. If the world community would actually focus on stability and peace, we would be in a much better situation.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Do you think we will ever be able to say we succeeded in reducing poverty to an acceptable level?
WOLFENSOHN: We have the possibility because the resources of this world are large. The world economy has a volume of 35 trillion (billioner) US dollar, of which 28 trillion are from rich countries and seven trillion from developing countries.
If one was only putting one trillion dollars, that is one thousand billion dollars, into development assistance, one could achieve enormous progress. Already, if one was only increasing the world-wide budget for development assistance by 50 or 60 billion dollars, one could change many things. We thus have the possibility to change something – the political will is however missing.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Can, in the long term, financial assistance from rich countries really secure the future of developing countries? Is that not a concept of the past, because in the end dependency remains?
WOLFENSOHN: Of course. We could achieve much if we, as industrial countries, would open our markets and, for instance, slash farm subsidies. We currently spend 350 billion dollar each year on subsidies, that is seven times as much as on development assistance.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Are you surprised that after the terrorist attacks from September 11, the world is still not really ready to help people in developing countries?
WOLFENSOHN: I am very surprised. But after September 11 one put the emphasis of politics on something as macho as the fight against terror. These are the topics that make for headlines. Poverty does not make headlines. But the world community is overlooking how valuable the poor can be in the fight against the poverty.
They are not awaiting charity. These are people who hope for a chance and who want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. I had the great privilege as World Bank chief to visit 120 countries. I saw villages and farms in the entire world. I met with people in slums. And these were no weak people. If we succeed in integrating them, then they will be a valuable force in the fight against poverty. What one needs is leadership at the highest level.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: How do you feel as the boss of the World Bank who lives in Washington – the city of the most powerful government in the world – when you see how Washington neglects development assistance and increases its military expenditures?
WOLFENSOHN: First, the Bush government increased its development assistance in the past three years from ten to fifteen billion dollars. In addition, there is the promised 15 billion dollar for AIDS assistance. These are two very important decisions.
With 18 billion dollar, the United States has the highest contribution to development assistance, but it is only 0,14 percent of their gross national product. We would like that the US pays 0,25 percent, which is the current global average of development assistance.
In the end, all industrial nations should pay 0,7 percent. But for Washington the way is longer than for other countries. It is unfortunately improbable that one will reach this goal in the immediate future.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Why are we so stingy?
WOLFENSOHN: Because development assistance is not a topic that relates to domestic affairs and because most people in industrial countries do not recognize that they are concerned by poverty in Africa.
Nobody believed that the connection between poverty and hopelessness in Afghanistan had anything to do with us, until the moment when the World Trade Center was blown up. Then people suddenly asked themselves: What is happening in Afghanistan?
And the next thing we realize is that not Afghans committed the attacks on September 11, but terrorists, who used Afghanistan as their basis. Today, we are concerned about drug trade; at the same time, Afghanistan is still the largest heroin producer. And nothing will change as long as we do not offer the people alternative ways of income.
And as long as we do not make clear to our citizens that what is happening in Afghanistan is of direct concern to us, and that we must do something, nothing will change. On that point, our politicians must finally lead, they must make clear that one cannot build psychological walls, but that the world must be looked upon from a global perspective.
BERLINER ZEITUNG: Will the World Bank be more involved in Iraq after the election?
WOLFENSOHN: We already suggested that we are ready to spend five billion dollars in Iraq. We already budgeted 400 million for different projects, but the implementation is difficult.
We cannot send people to Iraq at the moment, because they are the targets of attacks. We are used to working in dangerous places such as Gaza, Kosovo, East Timor or Africa. There are accidents, coworkers die. But in these countries, our people are no targets. In Iraq, however, they are a permanent target. Even Iraqis who work with us are in danger.
Until Iraq is a more peaceful environment, the entire development, not only our own involvement, will be delayed. Still, that has not stopped us from helping with setting up the educational system, for example, by distributing text books.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
