[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 29 (Monday, July 23, 2001)]
[Pages 1048-1051]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the World Bank

July 17, 2001

    Thank you all very much. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for 
your distinguished years. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your 
kind comments. I'm honored to be here today with the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Paul O'Neill--thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary--as well 
as our Trade Ambassador, Bob Zoellick. I appreciate the leadership that 
these two men have shown. Their steady advice, their standards, their 
adherence to principle make my job a lot easier.
    I also want to thank Jim Wolfensohn for not only the invitation to 
be here but for your traveling long distances to get here to hear this 
speech. He said he landed at 6 o'clock this morning. Obviously, he'd 
never heard me give a speech before. [Laughter] But I do appreciate his 
leadership. I appreciate the fact that he's raised the profile of global 
poverty and has underscored the importance for erasing it. I'm proud of 
his leadership, and I'm proud of the folks that work here at the World 
Bank. And I want to thank you for coming to give me a chance to speak to 
you.
    Last month in Poland, I talked about Europe and America working in 
partnership to build a house of freedom, a house whose doors should be 
open to all of Europe's emerging democracies and a house whose windows 
should be open to help Europe and America see clearly their challenges 
and responsibilities in the rest of the world.
    My last trip to Europe focused mainly on opening the doors of 
freedom throughout Europe by enlarging NATO and the European Union. 
Tomorrow I will travel to Europe to meet with leaders of the world's 
most industrialized nations, as well as Russia, to discuss the 
developing world and its needs and the developed world and our duties.
    The needs are many and undeniable, and they are a challenge to our 
conscience and to complacency. A world where some live in comfort and 
plenty while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day is 
neither just nor stable. As we recognize this great need, we can also 
recognize even greater promise.
    World poverty is ancient, yet the hope of real progress against 
poverty is new. Vast regions and nations from Chile to Thailand are 
escaping the bonds of poverty and oppression by embracing markets and 
trade and new technologies. What some call globalization is, in fact, 
the triumph of human liberty stretching across national borders. And it 
holds the promise of delivering billions of the world's citizens from 
disease and hunger and want. This is a great and noble prospect, that 
freedom can work not just in the new world or the old world but in all 
the world.
    We have, today, the opportunity to include all the world's poor in 
an expanding circle of development, throughout all the Americas, all of 
Asia, and all of Africa. This is a great moral challenge, what Pope John 
Paul II called, placing the freedom of the market in the service of 
human freedom in its totality. Our willingness to recognize that with 
freedom comes great responsibility, especially for the least among us, 
may take the measure of the 21st century.

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    This cause is a priority of the United States foreign policy, 
because we do recognize our responsibilities and because having strong 
and stable nations as neighbors in the world is in our own best 
interests.
    In centuries past, strong nations often wanted weak neighbors to 
dominate. In our age, strong nations must recognize the benefits of 
successful partners around the world. Strong partners export their 
products, not their problems. Conquering poverty creates new customers. 
And a world that is more free and more prosperous is also a world much 
more likely to remain at peace.
    To build this better world, we must be guided by three great goals. 
First, America and her friends and allies must pursue policies to keep 
the peace and promote prosperity. The United States and her allies will 
pursue a balance of world power that favors human freedom.
    This requires a new strategic framework that moves beyond cold war 
doctrines and addresses the threats of a new century, such as 
cyberterrorism, weapons of mass destruction, missiles in the hands of 
those for whom terror and blackmail are a very way of life. These 
threats have the potential to destabilize freedom and progress, and we 
will not permit it.
    Prosperity depends on a stable and peaceful world. Global prosperity 
also depends on the world's economic powers keeping our economic houses 
in order. We all must pursue pro-growth policies that encourage greater 
productivity, reduce tax burdens, while maintaining fiscal 
responsibility and stable prices.
    Our second goal is to ignite a new era of global economic growth 
through a world trading system that is dramatically more open and more 
free. One of the most important objectives of my meetings with other G-7 
leaders in Italy will be to secure their strong endorsement for a launch 
of a new round of global trade negotiations later this year.
    And at home, one of my most important legislative priorities will be 
to secure from Congress trade promotion authority that five other 
Presidents have had, an authority necessary so that when our United 
States enters into agreement, the countries with whom we've agreed to 
will understand we mean business. It's time for Congress to act.
    Free trade applies the power of markets to the needs of the poor. We 
know that nations that open their economies to the benefits of trade are 
more successful in climbing out of poverty. We know that giving 
developing countries greater access to world markets can quickly and 
dramatically raise investment levels and incomes. We also know that free 
trade encourages the habits of liberty that sustain freedom over the 
long haul.
    That is why I applaud the World Bank's leadership in helping 
countries build the institutions and expertise they need to benefit from 
trade.
    Despite trade's proven track record for lifting the lives of the 
poor, organizers of the summit expect many people to take to the streets 
later this week in Italy to try to stop our progress. They seek to shut 
down meetings because they want to shut down free trade. I respect the 
right to peaceful expression, but make no mistake, those who protest 
free trade are no friends of the poor. Those who protest free trade seek 
to deny them their best hope for escaping poverty.
    Legitimate concerns about labor standards, the environment, economic 
dislocation should be and will be addressed. But we must reject a 
protectionism that blocks the path of prosperity for developing 
countries. We must reject policies that would condemn them to permanent 
poverty. As my friend the former President of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, 
said, the protesters seem strangely determined to save the developing 
world from development.
    Our third goal must be to work in true partnership with developing 
countries to remove the huge obstacles to development, to help them 
fight illiteracy, disease, unsustainable debt. This is compassionate 
conservatism at an international level. And it's the responsibility that 
comes with freedom and prosperity.
    Already, 23 of the world's poorest nations are benefiting from 
efforts to relieve them of the crippling burden of massive debt. These 
nations have committed themselves to economic reform and to channeling 
the savings from debt relief into health and education. The United 
States has been and will

[[Page 1050]]

continue to be a world leader on responsible debt relief.
    The developed nations must also increase our commitment to help 
educate people throughout the world. Literacy and learning are the 
foundation of democracy and development. That is why I propose the 
United States increase funding for our education assistance programs by 
nearly 20 percent.
    Today I'm directing the Secretary of State and the Administrator of 
the Agency for International Development to develop an initiative to 
improve basic education and teacher training in Africa, where some 
countries are expected to lose 10 percent or more of their teachers to 
AIDS in the next 5 years.
    For its part, the World Bank and the other development banks must, 
as Secretary O'Neill has noted, focus on raising productivity in 
developing nations, especially through investments in education.
    Yet, only about 7 percent of World Bank resources are devoted to 
education. Moreover, these funds are provided as loans that must be 
repaid and often times aren't. Today I call on all multilateral 
development banks to increase the share of their funding devoted to 
education and to tie support more directly to clear and measurable 
results.
    I also propose the World Bank and other development banks 
dramatically increase the share of their funding provided as grants 
rather than loans to the poorest countries. Specifically, I propose that 
up to 50 percent of the funds provided by the development banks to the 
poorest countries be provided as grants for education, health, 
nutrition, water supply, sanitation, and other human needs, which will 
be a major step forward. Debt relief is really a short-term fix. The 
proposal today doesn't merely drop the debt; it helps stop the debt.
    The world also needs to begin realizing the enormous potential of 
biotechnology to help end hunger. The U.N. has recently reported 
biotechnology can dramatically improve crop yields in developing 
countries while using fewer pesticides and less water. We need to move 
forward based on sound science to bring these benefits to the 800 
million people, including 300 million children, who still suffer from 
hunger and malnutrition.
    Finally, the Genoa Summit will formally launch a new global fund to 
combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. The United States was the 
first to announce our contribution to this fund, originally called for 
by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. We are proud to have been a leader 
in developing the fund's structure and its focus on prevention with a 
broad strategy that includes treatment and care.
    And I'm proud that our country contributes nearly $1 billion 
annually to international efforts to combat AIDS and infectious 
diseases. I might remind folks that's more than twice the amount of the 
second largest donor. We stand ready to commit more to the global fund 
when it demonstrates success.
    In all these areas--health, education, hunger, and debt--America is 
committed to walking alongside leaders and nations that are traveling 
the hard but rewarding path of political and economic reform, nations 
that are committed to rooting out cronyism and corruption, nations that 
are committed to building the institutions of freedom and good 
government.
    In 1950, at the height of the cold war, John Foster Dulles issued a 
promise to the people of South Korea. ``You're not alone,'' he said. 
``You'll never be alone so long as you continue to play worthily your 
part in the great design of human freedom.'' Fifty years since, our 
circumstances have changed beyond recognition. The world is no longer 
divided into armed camps. Democracy has become a seed on the wind, 
taking root in many nations. So much has changed, yet America's 
commitment is still the same.
    To all nations promoting democratic government and the rule of law 
so that trade and aid can succeed, you're not alone. To all nations 
tearing down the walls of suspicion and isolation and building ties of 
trade and trust, you're not alone. And to all nations who are willing to 
stake their future on the global progress of liberty, you will never be 
alone. This is my Nation's pledge, a pledge I will keep.
    Thank you for having me.

[[Page 1051]]

Note: The President spoke at 9:40 a.m. in the Preston Auditorium at the 
World Bank. In his remarks, he referred to James D. Wolfensohn, 
president, World Bank Group.