[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10911-S10915]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              JAMES D. WOLFENSOHN OF THE WORLD BANK GROUP

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, not many Americans--in fact not many 
human beings--have the opportunity to bring about permanent change in 
our world. Even if a person has the opportunity, it is seldom that 
change can be brought about in a time span of only 3 years. A 
distinguished exception to this is the president of the World Bank 
Group, James D. Wolfensohn. Under

[[Page S10912]]

President Wolfensohn's wise guidance, the World Bank Group is 
facilitating global changes through the application of systems and 
knowledge developed in the United States.
  Jim Wolfensohn, formerly president and chief executive officer of his 
own corporation, chairman of the board of trustees of the John F. 
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and executive partner at 
Salomon Bros., recently delivered his third yearly address to the board 
of governors of the World Bank Group.
  After reading this compelling statement twice, I concluded his 
message should be available to all who wonder if our citizens are 
applying the lessons of enlightened free enterprise in their business 
and personal lives throughout the world. I envy Jim Wolfensohn. He is 
truly making a difference in this world. It is my pleasure to commend 
his remarks to the Senate, and I ask unanimous consent that his 
statement entitled ``The Challenge of Inclusion'' be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       The Challenge of Inclusion

                        (By James D. Wolfensohn)

       I am very pleaded to welcome you to these Annual Meetings 
     of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund 
     (IMF). I am also delighted to be in Hong Kong. This beautiful 
     and bustling city, which I have visited regularly for forty 
     years, exemplifies the openness, dynamism, and optimism of so 
     much of Asia today. And so does our meeting here in this 
     magnificent conference center, where everything has been done 
     impeccably. I would like to express my thanks to our hosts, 
     the government of China, and the authorities here in Hong 
     Kong. It is impossible to imagine greater courtesy, 
     generosity, and efficiency. We look forward to your continued 
     progress.
       China's success has been truly remarkable. Less than a 
     generation ago, eight in ten Chinese eked out an existence by 
     tilling the soil for less than a dollar day. One adult in 
     three could neither read nor write. Since then, 200 million 
     people have been lifted out of absolute poverty, and 
     illiteracy has fallen to less than one in ten. China is our 
     largest borrower, one of our most valued shareholders, and 
     home to more than a quarter of our clients. I am delighted 
     that our partnership continues to strengthen.
       This is the third time that I address you as president of 
     the World Bank Group--the third time I have the opportunity 
     to express my deep gratitude to my friend Michel Camdessus, 
     whose collaboration over the past two and a half years has 
     been so invaluable to me. We work ever more closely together, 
     and I continue to benefit from his great experience and 
     judgment.
       From the beginning, one of my priorities has been to take 
     the pulse of development firsthand. I have now visited almost 
     sixty countries. I have met with governments, 
     parliamentarians, and the private sector. I have talked with 
     national and international nongovernmental organizations 
     (NGOs) on subjects ranging from women's issues to the 
     environment, from health to the impact of macroeconomic 
     reform.
       Wherever I go, I continue to be impressed by the people we 
     serve--by their strength, their energy and their enterprise, 
     even in the most abject conditions. By the hundreds of 
     thousands disadvantaged by war, by the millions of children 
     without families condemned to live on the streets, by the 
     disabled shut out from any kind of social support. By the 
     plight of the poorest.
       Today our clients number 4.7 billion people in over 100 
     countries. Three billion live on under 2 dollars a day. A 
     billion three hundred million live on under 1 dollar a day. 
     One hundred million go hungry every day; 150 million never 
     even get the chance to go to school.
       But whether they live on the plains or in the valleys, 
     whether they live in slums or isolated villages, whether they 
     speak Hindi, Swahili, or Uzbek, they have one thing in 
     common: They do not want charity. They want a chance. They do 
     not want solutions imposed from without. They want the 
     opportunity to build from within. They do not want my culture 
     or yours. They want their own. They want a future enriched by 
     the inheritance of their past.
       I have learned that people are the same wherever they are--
     here in this room and across the world. We all want the best 
     for our children and our families. We all want peace and 
     economic and physical security. We all want to live in a 
     supportive community. We all want personal dignity.
       This was vividly brought home to me six months ago when I 
     visited a large water and sanitation project that the Bank is 
     supporting in the favelas of Brazil. The project, which is 
     now self-sustaining, brings together the local community, the 
     private sector, and NGOs.
       With my host, the vice governor of the state of Rio, I went 
     from one makeshift home to the next, talking with the women 
     who live there and who used to carry the water on their 
     shoulders from the bottom of the hillside to their dwellings 
     at the top. One after the other, they proudly showed me their 
     running water and flushed their toilets and told me how the 
     project had transformed their lives.
       And as we walked around, more and more of the women came up 
     to me displaying pieces of paper showing charges and receipts 
     for a few reals a month. I watched and listened to this until 
     the vice governor said, ``What they're showing you, Jim, is 
     that this is the first time in their lives that their name 
     and address have appeared on an official notice. This is the 
     first time their existence has been officially recognized. 
     This is the first time that they have been included in 
     society. With that receipt they can get credit to purchase 
     goods, with that receipt they have recognition and hope.''
       As I walked back down the hill from that favela, I realized 
     that this is what the challenge of development is all about--
     inclusion. Bringing people into society who have never been 
     part of it before. This is why the World Bank Group exists. 
     This is why we are all here today. To help make it happen for 
     people.


                  The State of Development circa 1997

       Where are we in terms of ``making it happen'' in 1997? In 
     many ways, this is the best of times for developing 
     countries: Output grew last year by 5.6 percent--the highest 
     rate in twenty years. Foreign direct investment exceeded $100 
     billion--the most ever. Private capital flows now total $245 
     billion--five times official development assistance. And 
     developing countries are projected to enjoy continued strong 
     growth over the next ten years.
       Social indicators are also improving. Life expectancy has 
     risen more in the past forty years than in the previous four 
     thousand. And freedom is blossoming. Today nearly two in 
     three countries use open elections to choose their national 
     leadership and 5 billion people live in a market economy--up 
     from 1 billion ten years ago.
       There is also much good news regionally: Reform programs in 
     Eastern Europe and Central Asia continue to advance, and 
     prospects for accession to the European Union now look 
     promising for several countries in the region. There is real 
     progress in Sub-Saharan Africa, with new leadership and 
     better economic policies. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 
     4.5 percent in 1996, up from 2 percent two years ago.
       In the Middle East and North Africa, despite political 
     problems, efforts continue to boost regional trade and 
     investment, improve competitiveness, and expand economic 
     opportunity. In Latin America countries have emerged from the 
     tequila crisis, with their earlier gains against 
     hyperinflation fully intact.
       In East Asia, despite recent turbulence in financial 
     markets, we still expect long-term growth and poverty 
     reduction to be strong. And in South Asia, home to 35 percent 
     of the developing world's poor, growth rates over the past 
     several years have approached 6 percent.
       This all adds up to much to celebrate--but there is also 
     much to lament. Yes, the glass is half full, but it is also 
     half empty. Too many people are not enjoying the fruits of 
     success--
       Here in East Asia, where, despite the ``miracle,'' 
     inequities between rural and urban areas and between the 
     skilled and the unskilled are becoming more widespread.
       In the countries of the former Soviet Union, where the old 
     and the unemployed have become more vulnerable amidst the 
     turbulence caused by the transition from command to market 
     economies.
       In parts of Latin America, where problems of landownership, 
     crime, drug-related violence, unequal access to education and 
     health care, and enormous disparities in income hinder 
     progress and threaten stability.
       And in many of the world's poorest countries, where 
     population growth continues to run ahead of economic growth, 
     eroding living standards.
       And the deeper tragedy is that the glass is almost totally 
     empty for too many. Indeed, for too many, it is the worst of 
     times, as huge disparities persist across and within 
     countries.
       In too many countries, the poorest 10 percent of the 
     population has less than 1 percent of the income, while the 
     richest 20 percent enjoys over half. In too many countries, 
     girls are still only half as likely as boys to go to school. 
     In too many countries, children are impaired from birth 
     because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and little 
     or no access to early childhood development programs. In too 
     many countries, ethnic minorities face discrimination and 
     fear for their lives at the hands of ethnic majorities.
       What we are seeing in the world today is the tragedy of 
     exclusion.


                          The Challenge Ahead

       Our goal must be to reduce these disparities across and 
     within countries, to bring more and more people into the 
     economic mainstream, to promote equitable access to the 
     benefits of development regardless of nationality, race, or 
     gender. This--the Challenge of Inclusion--is the key 
     development challenge of our time.
       You and I and all of us in this room--the privileged of the 
     developing and the industrial world--can choose to ignore 
     that challenge. We can focus only on the successes. We can 
     live with a little more crime, a few more wars, air that is a 
     little bit dirtier. We can insulate ourselves from whole 
     sections of the world for which crisis is real and daily but 
     which to the rest of us is largely invisible. But we must 
     recognize that we are living

[[Page S10913]]

     with a time bomb, and unless we take action now, it could 
     explode in our children's faces.
       If we do not act, in thirty years the inequities will be 
     greater. With population growing at 80 million a year, 
     instead of 3 billion living on under $2 a day, it could be as 
     high as 5 billion. In thirty years, the quality of our 
     environment will be worse. Instead of 4 percent of tropical 
     forests lost since Rio, it could be 24 percent.
       In thirty years, the number of conflicts may be higher. 
     Already we live in a world which last year alone saw twenty-
     six interstate wars and 23 million refugees. One does not 
     have to spend long in Bosnia or Gaza or the Lakes District in 
     Africa to know that without economic hope we will not have 
     peace. Without equity we will not have global stability. 
     Without a better sense of social justice our cities will not 
     be safe, and our societies will not be stable. Without 
     inclusion, too many of us will be condemned to live 
     separate, armed, and frightened lives.
       Whether you broach it from the social or the economic or 
     the moral perspective, this is a challenge we cannot afford 
     to ignore. There are not two worlds, there is one world. We 
     breathe the same air. We degrade the same environment. We 
     share the same financial system. We have the same health 
     problems. AIDS is not a problem that stops at borders. Crime 
     does not stop at borders. Drugs do not stop at borders. 
     Terrorism, war, and famine do not stop at borders.
       And economics is fundamentally changing the relationships 
     between the rich and the poor nations. Over the next twenty-
     five years, growth in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and 
     Russia will likely redraw the economic map of the world, as 
     the share in global output of the developing and transition 
     economies doubles. Today these countries represent 50 percent 
     of the world's population but only 8 percent of its GDP. 
     Their share in world trade is a quarter that of the European 
     Union. By the year 2020, their share in world trade could be 
     50 percent more than Europe's.
       We share the same world, and we share the same challenge. 
     The fight against poverty is the fight for peace, security, 
     and growth for us all.
       How, then, do we proceed? This much we know: No country has 
     been successful in reducing poverty without sustained 
     economic growth. Those countries that have been most 
     successful--including, most notably, many here in East Asia--
     have also invested heavily in their people, have put in place 
     the right policy fundamentals, and have not discriminated 
     against their rural sectors. The results have been dramatic: 
     large private capital inflows, rapid growth, and substantial 
     poverty reduction.
       The message for countries is clear: Educate your people; 
     ensure their health; give them voice and justice, financial 
     systems that work, and sound economic policies, and they will 
     respond, and they will save, and they will attract the 
     investment, both domestic and foreign, that is needed to 
     raise living standards and fuel development.
       But another message is also emerging from recent 
     developments. We have seen in recent months how financial 
     markets are demanding more information disclosure, and how 
     they are making swift judgments about the quality and 
     sustainability of government policies based on that 
     information. We have seen that without sound organization and 
     supervision a financial system can falter, with the poor hurt 
     the most. We have seen how corruption flourishes in the dark, 
     how it prevents growth and social equity, and how it creates 
     the basis for social and political instability.
       We must recognize this link between good economic 
     performance and open governance. Irrespective of political 
     systems, public decisions must be brought right out into the 
     sunshine of public scrutiny. Not simply to please the markets 
     but to build the broad social consensus without which even 
     the best-conceived economic strategies will ultimately fail.


                       the development community

       How can we in the broader development community be most 
     effective in helping with the enormous task ahead?
       It is clear that the scale of the challenge is simply too 
     great to be handled by any single one of us. Nor will we get 
     the job done if we work at cross purposes or pursue rivalries 
     that should have been laid to rest long since. Name calling 
     between civil society and multilateral development 
     institutions must stop. We should encourage criticism. But we 
     should also recognize that we share a common goal and that we 
     need each other.
       Partnership, I am convinced, must be a cornerstone of our 
     efforts. And it must rest on four pillars.
       First and foremost, the governments and the people of 
     developing countries must be in the driver's seat--exercising 
     choice and setting their own objectives for themselves. 
     Development requires much too much sustained political will 
     to be externally imposed. It cannot be donor-driven.
       But what we as a development community can do is help 
     countries--by providing financing, yes; but even more 
     important, by providing knowledge and lessons learned about 
     the challenges and how to address them.
       We must learn to let go. We must accept that the projects 
     we fund are not donor projects or World Bank projects--they 
     are Costa Rican projects, or Bangladeshi projects, or Chinese 
     projects. And development projects and programs must be fully 
     owned by local stakeholders if they are to succeed. We must 
     listen to those stakeholders.
       Second, our partnerships must be inclusive--involving 
     bilaterals and multilaterals, the United Nations, the 
     European Union, regional organizations, the World Trade 
     Organization, labor organizations, NGOs, foundations, and the 
     private sector. With each of us playing to our respective 
     strengths, we can leverage up the entire development effort.
       Third, we should offer our assistance to all countries in 
     need. But we must be selective in how we use our resources. 
     There is no escaping the hard fact: More people will be 
     lifted out of poverty if we concentrate our assistance on 
     countries with good policies than if we allocate it 
     irrespective of the policies pursued. Recent studies confirm 
     what we already knew intuitively--that in a good policy 
     environment, development assistance improves growth prospects 
     and social conditions, but in a poor policy environment, it 
     can actually retard progress by reducing the need for change 
     and by creating dependency.
       I want to be very clear on this point: I am not espousing 
     some Darwinian theory of development whereby we discard the 
     unfit by the wayside. Quite the contrary. Our goal is to 
     support the fit and to help the unfit fit. This is all about 
     inclusion.
       In Africa, for example, a new generation of leaders 
     deserves our strongest possible support for the tough 
     decisions they are making; they have vast needs and a growing 
     capacity to use donor funds well in addressing them. We must 
     be there for them. It is an economic and a moral imperative.
       However, where aid cannot be effective because of bad 
     policy or corruption or weak governance, we need to think of 
     new ways to help the people. not the old technical assistance 
     approaches of the past that relied too heavily on foreign 
     consultants. But helping countries help themselves: by 
     building their own capacity to design and implement their own 
     development.
       Finally, all of us in the development community must look 
     at our strategies anew.
       We need that quantum leap which will allow us to make a 
     real dent in poverty. We need to scale up, to think beyond 
     individual donor-financed projects to larger country-led 
     national strategies and beyond that to regional strategies 
     and systemic reform.
       We need approaches that can be replicated and customized to 
     local circumstances. Not one agricultural project here or one 
     group of schools there. But rural and educational country 
     strategies that can help the Oaxacas and the Chiapas of this 
     world, as well as the Mexico Cities.
       We need to hit hard on the key pressure points for change--
     adequate infrastructure in key areas, social and human 
     development, rural and environmental development, and 
     financial and private sector development.
       And we need to remember that educating girls and supporting 
     opportunities for women--health, education and employment--
     are crucial to balanced development.
       In the struggle for inclusion, this all adds up to a 
     changed bottom line for the development community. We must 
     think results--how to get the biggest development return from 
     our scarce resources. We must think sustainability--how to 
     have enduring development impact within an environmentally 
     sustainable framework. We must think equity--how to include 
     the disadvantaged. We must focus not on the easy projects but 
     on the difficult--in northeast Brazil, in India's Gangetic 
     Plain, and in the Horn of Africa. Projects there will be 
     riskier, yes. But success will be worth all the more in terms 
     of including more people in the benefits of development--and 
     giving more people the chance of a better life.


                    The World Bank Group's Response

       How is the Bank Group responding to the Challenge of 
     Inclusion?
       Last year, I said that if the Group was to be more 
     effective, it needed to change--to get closer to our clients' 
     real needs, to focus on quality, and to be more accountable 
     for the results of our work. This year, I want to tell you 
     that it is happening. Not only is the Bank changing, but the 
     need for change is now fully accepted.
       I know--and you know--that the Bank has tried to change 
     before. But there has never been this level of commitment and 
     consensus. We are building on the mission statement 
     articulated by my predecessor, Lew Preston, whose untimely 
     death prevented him from implementing his plans.
       Earlier this year, we launched an action program--the 
     Strategic Compact--to renew our values and commitment to 
     development and to improve the Bank's effectiveness. I 
     believe the Compact is historic. Not because there is 
     agreement on every paragraph of the document; but because 
     staff, management, and shareholders--with terrific support 
     from our Executive Directors--are now united on the future 
     direction of the institution. And while we still have a long 
     way to go, and while change is painful--and some people are 
     undoubtedly feeling that pain--implementation is well under 
     way.
       I really believe that this time we can succeed. And we will 
     succeed because of our truly remarkable and dedicated staff. 
     I do not believe a better development team exists, or one 
     with more experience in fighting poverty.
       But the Compact is not primarily about our organization and 
     internal change; it is about our clients and meeting their 
     needs more effectively. To take this beyond rhetoric, we have 
     decentralized aggressively to

[[Page S10914]]

     the field. By the end of this month, eighteen of our forty-
     eight country directors with decisionmaking authority will be 
     based in the countries they serve--compared with only three 
     last year.
       We have speeded up our response time and have introduced 
     new products such as the single currency loan and loans for 
     innovative projects of $5 million or less that can be 
     implemented very quickly.
       Working with Michel Camdessus and our colleagues in the 
     IMF--as well as with many other partners--we have prepared 
     debt reduction packages worth about $5 billion for six 
     heavily indebted poor countries under the HIPC Initiative. 
     Not bad for an effort that did not even have a name eighteen 
     months ago. And we are moving speedily ahead to help other 
     HIPC countries.
       The New Bank is committed to quality.
       We have put in place reinvigorated country management 
     teams, with 150 new managers selected over the last six 
     months, and rigorous training and professional development 
     programs have been introduced for all staff. The 
     International Finance Corporation (IFC) has also made 
     major changes in management and is decentralizing to the 
     field.
       We have improved the quality of our portfolio, and as a 
     result our disbursements reached a record level last year of 
     $20 billion.
       And the quality of all our work is being enhanced by the 
     progress we have made toward becoming a Knowledge Bank. We 
     have created networks to share knowledge across all regions 
     and all major sectors of development. Our Economic 
     Development Institute is playing a leading role in this area. 
     Last June in Toronto, working with the Canadian government 
     and many other sponsors, EDI brought together participants 
     from over 100 countries, for the first Global Knowledge 
     Conference.
       My goal is to make the World Bank the first port of call 
     when people need knowledge about development. By the year 
     2000, we will have in place a global communications system 
     with computer links, videoconferencing, and interactive 
     classrooms, affording our clients all around the world full 
     access to our information bases--the end of geography as we 
     at the Bank have known it.
       We are also promoting increased accountability throughout 
     the World Bank Group:
       We have developed a corporate scorecard to measure our 
     performance. We are closely monitoring compliance with our 
     policies and are continuing to work to improve the inspection 
     process by making it more transparent and effective. And we 
     are designing new personnel policies that explicitly link 
     staff performance to pay and promotion.
       We are also emphasizing accountability in the dialogue with 
     our clients. Last year, I highlighted the importance of 
     tackling the cancer of corruption. Since then, we have issued 
     new guidelines to staff for dealing with corruption--and for 
     ensuring that our own processes meet the highest standards of 
     transparency and propriety. We have also begun working with a 
     first half-dozen of our member countries to develop 
     anticorruption programs.
       My bottom line on corruption is simple: If a government is 
     unwilling to take action despite the fact that the country's 
     development objectives are undermined by corruption, then the 
     Bank Group must curtail its level of support to that country. 
     Corruption, by definition, is exclusive: It promotes the 
     interests of the few over the many. We must fight it wherever 
     we find it.
       But key to meeting the challenge of inclusion is making 
     sure not only that we do things right but that we do the 
     right things. Earlier, I mentioned the strategic pressure 
     points of change. Let me say a few words about what we are 
     doing in each of these areas.
       Human and social development. We are mainstreaming social 
     issues--including support for the important role of 
     indigenous culture--into our country assistance strategies so 
     that we can better reach ethnic minorities, households headed 
     by women, and other excluded groups.
       We are participating in programs designed by local 
     communities to address pervasive needs, such as the EDUCO 
     basic literacy program in El Salvador and the District 
     Primary Education Program in India, and these programs are 
     being replicated by other countries.
       We are increasing our support for capacity-building--
     particularly the comprehensive program initiated by the 
     African countries last year.
       Sustainable development. In the rural sector, which is home 
     to more than 70 percent of the world's poor, we have 
     completed a major rethinking of our strategy. Lending is now 
     up after many years of decline, supporting innovative 
     programs such as the new market-based approach to land reform 
     in Brazil.
       We are also supporting our clients' efforts to address the 
     brown environmental issues--clean water and adequate 
     sanitation--that are so often neglected but are so important 
     for the quality of the everyday lives of the poor.
       And, through the Global Environment Facility, the Global 
     Carbon Initiative, and a new partnership with the World 
     Wildlife Fund to protect the world's forests, we are 
     continuing to advance the global environmental agenda.
       The private sector. We are capitalizing on the synergies 
     between the Bank, the IFC, and the Multilateral Investment 
     Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and are coordinating our activities 
     under a single, client-focused service ``window.''
       Across the Bank Group, we are building up our work on 
     regulatory, legal, and judicial reform designed to help 
     create environments that will attract foreign and domestic 
     private capital. We are using International Bank of 
     Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) guarantees to help 
     support policy changes and mitigate risk, and we are 
     expanding the product line of the International Development 
     Association (IDA) to help poor countries develop their 
     private sectors and become full participants in the global 
     economy.
       Meanwhile, the IFC is working in 110 countries, and in more 
     sectors, employing more financial products than ever before. 
     Last year saw $6.7 billion in new approvals in 276 projects. 
     The IFC's Extending the Reach Program is targeting thirty-
     three countries and regions that have received very little 
     private sector investment. Again, the goal is clear: to bring 
     more and more marginalized economies into the global 
     marketplace.
       MIGA, too is playing an active and enhanced role. Last year 
     it issued a record seventy guarantee contracts for projects 
     in twenty-five developing countries, including 
     eleven countries where it has not been active before. I am 
     delighted that yesterday the Development Committee agreed 
     to an increase in MIGA's capital that will allow it to 
     continue to grow.
       The financial sector. This pressure point has been brought 
     sharply into focus by recent events in East Asia. Here too we 
     are scaling up our work in coordination with the IMF and the 
     regional development banks for the simple reason that when 
     the financial sector fails, it is the poor who suffer most. 
     It is the poor who pay the highest price when investment and 
     access to credit dry up, when workers are laid off, when 
     budgets and services are cut back to cover losses.
       But success in the financial sector requires much more than 
     the announcement of new policies or financial packages pulled 
     together when crisis hits. This is why we are expanding our 
     capacity for banking and financial system restructuring--and 
     not just for the middle-income countries, but taking on the 
     larger task of financial sector development in low-income 
     countries.
       For those countries, home to the world's 3 billion poorest 
     people, IDA remains the key instrument for addressing the 
     Challenge of Inclusion. I will be coming back to you in due 
     course to seek your support for the twelfth replenishment of 
     IDA.


                               conclusion

       I believe we have made considerable progress in putting our 
     own house in order in preparation for the challenges of the 
     new millennium.
       1997 has been a year of significant achievement. We must 
     push ahead with this process. We must make sure that we 
     deliver next year's work program, that we strengthen the 
     project pipeline and increase the resources going directly to 
     the front line. And we must implement our recently completed 
     cost-effectiveness review.
       But the time has also come to get back to the dream. The 
     dream of inclusive development.
       We stand at a unique moment in history when we have a 
     chance to make that dream a reality. Today, we have 
     unprecedented consensus on the policies that need to be put 
     in place for sustainable and poverty-reducing growth. Today, 
     we have clear and unambiguous evidence of the economic and 
     social linkages between the developing and the industrial 
     worlds. Today, we face a future where, unless we take action, 
     our children will be condemned to live in a degrading 
     environment and a less secure world. All we need today is the 
     determination to focus on tomorrow and the courage to do it 
     now.
       As a development community we face a critical choice.
       We can continue business as usual, focusing on a project 
     here, a project there, all too often running behind the 
     poverty curve. We can continue making international 
     agreements that we ignore. We can continue engaging in turf 
     battles, competing for the moral high ground.
       Or we can decide to make a real difference.
       But to do that, we need to raise our sights. We need to 
     forge partnerships to maximize our leverage and our use of 
     scarce resources. And we need to scale up our efforts and hit 
     hard on those areas where our development impact can be 
     greatest.
       We at the Bank Group are ready to do our part. But we 
     cannot succeed alone. Only if we work together will we make a 
     dent. Only if we collectively change our attitude will we 
     make that quantum leap. Only if, in board rooms and 
     ministries and city squares across the globe, we begin to 
     recognize that ultimately we will not have sustainable 
     prosperity unless we have inclusion, will we make it happen.
       Let me end where I began: in that favela in Brazil: What I 
     saw in the faces of the women there, I have also seen on the 
     faces of women in India showing me passbooks for savings 
     accounts. I have seen it on the faces of rural cave dwellers 
     in China being offered new, productive land. I have seen it 
     on the faces of villagers in Uganda, able for the first time 
     to send their children to school because of the private 
     profit they can now make through rural extension schemes.
       The look in these people's eyes is not a look of 
     hopelessness. It's a look of pride, of self-esteem, of 
     inclusion. These are people who have a sense of themselves, 
     who have a sense of tradition, who have a sense of family. 
     All they need is a chance.
       Each one of us in this room must take personal 
     responsibility for making sure they get

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     that chance. We can do it. For the sake of our children, we 
     must do it. Working together, we will do it.

                          ____________________