5. Speeches by Paul Wolfowitz (2005-07)
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Paul Wolfowitz served as 10th President of the World Bank Group from 2005 to 2007.
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Publication Africa: The Road to Opportunity(2006-10-18) Wolfowitz, PaulPaul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, remarked that the past-quarter century has to count as the most successful 25 years in history in the fight against poverty. The one region that has so far been conspicuously left behind by that progress is Sub-Saharan Africa. The people of Africa are hard at work building a more hopeful future for their continent. There is no shortage of energy, ambition, or entrepreneurial spirit. What are most severely lacking are resources to support good plans and good ideas. For Africa and the poorest countries in the world a critical source of development funding comes from the International Development Association or IDA. France has been a leader in IDA in the past. The World Bank has responded with an ‘Africa Action Plan.’ Wolfowitz briefly discussed four key areas of focus: Education, Health, Private Sector Development, and Infrastructure.Publication Parliaments and Poverty in Africa(2006-10-17) Wolfowitz, PaulPaul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, reminded participants that it is important to remember the more than 1 billion people worldwide struggling to survive on less than $1 a day. Fighting the scourge of poverty is at the heart of the World Bank Group’s mission. The burden of debt and the disease of corruption threaten to undermine the efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Many regions of the world have made significant progress to improve living standards and reduce poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa is moving dangerously in the opposite direction. Africa’s richest resource, and its best hope, is its people. But more development financing and debt relief is needed. In the long run, neither aid nor debt relief will help the poor escape poverty without a transparent and accountable government. We are seeing an informed African citizenry demanding change. The World Bank Group is committed to supporting champions of reform in both government and civil society. Partnering with parliaments from donor countries is as important as working with parliaments in recipient countries. To achieve true prosperity for our integrated planet, we must work together to help give the poorest among us the chance to find their way out of poverty.Publication Development is a Two-Wheeled Cart(2006-02-16) Wolfowitz, PaulPaul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, remarked that the Gender Equality Millennium Development Goal is a central component of our overall mission of fighting poverty and empowering women in their education and opportunity for a better future. Gender equality is more than a women’s issue, it is a development issue. If one of the wheels of the cart isn’t moving, the cart won’t go very far. We have already missing the 2005 target to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education. Trends in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa put us in danger of missing the 2015 target. We must bring more women into the labor force and into higher-paid occupations. The Bank has made significant progress on gender mainstreaming in social sectors like education and health, but more must be done to support shared growth in such areas as infrastructure, energy, and transport.Publication Japan’s Role in Africa(2005-10-11) Wolfowitz, PaulPaul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, discussed how Japan’s success is an inspirational example for developing countries. Now, Japan is the second largest shareholder in the World Bank and a valued partner. Today the world is challenged to help the poor countries achieve the millennium development goals and that Japan and the World Bank have a common set of priorities in that endeavor. The Hong Kong round of the Doha development trade round is a big challenge ahead. The relationship between Japan and the World Bank is one of the most critical ones.Publication Charting a Way Ahead: The Results Agenda(2005-09-24) Wolfowitz, PaulPaul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, makes the case for ending poverty in our lifetime, especially in Africa. There is an urgent need for action, because thousands of people living in extreme poverty, many of them children, die every day from preventable diseases. The call to end poverty reaches across generations, continents, and nationalities. It spans religions, gender, and politics. Wolfowitz claims that the world is at a turning point, with grounds for hope. The last few decades have witnessed dramatic improvement in the condition of the world's poorest people. He cites as key factors leadership and accountability, respect for women, civil society, the private sector, and legal empowerment of the poor. He concludes that in order to find solutions for alleviating poverty, the World Bank needs to strengthen its knowledge and expertise in such areas as education, health, infrastructure, energy and sustainable development, and agriculture. We must chart a course for a future in which today's poor become tomorrow's entrepreneurs.Publication Third Annual Conference of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank, Bern, May 9-11, 2002: Keynote Speeches(2002-05) Wolfensohn, James D.; Wade, Abdoulaye; Moore, MikeOn May 9-11, 2002 the members of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank (PNoWB) met in Bern, Switzerland for their Third Annual Conference. The meeting took place in the Swiss Parliament to mark the tenth anniversary of Swiss membership in the Bretton Woods institutions. The attendance of 104 Members of Parliament from 42 countries helped to firmly establish the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank (PNoWB) as a parliamentary sounding board. The meeting underscored the important role that Parliamentarians play in international development. In the various sessions of the conference two themes recurred: implementation and governance. The participants of the conference were challenged by World Bank President James Wolfensohn to focus on implementing the international consensus that emerged from the conferences in Doha and Monterrey and leading up to Johannesburg. He urged Parliamentarians to invest in their relationships with their governments to be able to play an active role in implementing these development initiatives. At the same time, participants discussed the role that Parliamentarians could play to strengthen governance structures in developing countries to create an environment conducive to the success of development policies.