By
Jemal-ud-din Kassum
Vice President, East Asia and Pacific
The World Bank
World Economic Development Declaration Conference
Zhuhai, China, November 6, 2003 Thank you Chairman Cheng Siwei!
Your Excellency Madame Wu Yi, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends:
I feel privileged to be here today, and to represent the World Bank at this historic presentation of the Zhuhai Declaration on World Economic Development. The nine points in the Declaration distill lessons from more than half a century of international development. They present a vision of sustainable development in an integrated world economy, and of using partnerships and healthy competition to promote growth with equity. We believe that the implementation of the Zhuhai Declaration will support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, which is critical if we are to have a world free of poverty.
This meeting is taking place at a time when there are hopeful signs that global conditions are recovering. There is improving confidence and activity in several industrial countries. A positive sentiment has returned to capital markets. Stable, predictable policy-making and prudent macro-economic management are again possible. New partnerships within regions and among the developing countries promise more effective and concerted actions to face future economic challenges. The time is ripe for strengthening partnerships—among countries and peoples and between governments and investors—to renew our efforts to address the harshest realities of an unbalanced world. The first principle of the Zhuhai Declaration—the recognition of interdependence—reinforces the need to work in global harmony.
However, global harmony is only possible if we address the major imbalances that divide the global community. At our Annual Meetings in Dubai last September, the President of the World Bank, Jim Wolfensohn, urged world leaders to take more effective action to address the growing inequity in the world. He vividly described the highly inequitable distribution of global GDP, and the crushing incidence of poverty and lack of opportunity in the developing world.
Clearly, as we in the World Bank see it, the principles of the Zhuhai Declaration are fully aligned with the objective of confronting such challenges. The World Bank’s active role in helping implement the Millennium Development Goals has shown us already that the Zhuhai Declaration’s focus on distribution, the efficient use of resources, education, sustainable development, and its other principles, lie at the center of current and future development effort.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at the Boao Forum for Asia, where I made a number of points that are of relevance to this gathering. Let me summarize briefly.
Growth prospects in Asia are favorable, increasing regionalism can bring important economic benefits, and China is a major positive force for the region as a whole. At the same time, several issues must be addressed to achieve higher, sustainable long term growth and poverty reduction:
First, structural reform remains critical for improving the efficiency of resource use in East Asia. Even as the region continues to recover from the financial crisis, it is essential that we continue to deal with the remaining core of distressed firms, weak state enterprises, and financial institutions. Efforts to improve the investment climate will also be important.
Second, corruption and governance are liabilities for developing countries in this region and in other regions. The costs from corruption are still too high, making it difficult to attract long-term, quality investment.
And corruption hurts the poor most of all. While the rich bribe for speed or for favors, the poor have to bribe even for access to basic services. Prolonged systemic corruption undermines institutions and alienates investors. The developing world cannot afford that.
The third issue is infrastructure. Investment needs for infrastructure are huge, and growing. Simply maintaining the pace of growth and ensuring adequate service delivery, especially for the poor, will require substantial increases in infrastructure investments in many countries. Much of the infrastructure is needed to meet the enormous challenge of urbanization. In order to avoid problems down the line, investments need to be made now, and we must find new forms of public/private partnership to make this happen.
The last issue I raised was trade reform. The lack of an agreement in Cancun is a disappointing setback, but the process of negotiating improved trade rules that benefit all countries – and especially poor people in developing countries – must go forward. A good, pro-poor Doha agreement would increase growth in developing countries, and would lift an additional 140 million people out of poverty by 2015. So we join others, such as Mr. Hawke, in calling for all countries to strive for a successful Doha development round.
Today, I want to go further, and add the following points.
The global compact arrived at in the multilateral meetings in Monterrey, Doha and Johannesburg remains fundamental to achieving greater equity, stability and poverty reduction. What we are discussing here at the Zhuhai conference is a logical part of that sequence, and perhaps we will soon be referring to it as the Monterey-Doha-Johannesburg-Zhuhai, or MDJ-Z, agenda. I mentioned earlier the lack of balance between the rich and poor, but also the steps that the poorer countries can take themselves to improve things. Yes, it is vital that the richer countries and trading blocs open their doors to imports from the developing world; without such access, talk of aid and development is just empty rhetoric. But equally, we need to ensure that development assistance and locally collected revenues are used more effectively by developing countries. In this regard, many countries can learn from China’s successful experience in effective resource utilization and in large scale poverty reduction.
This compact – openness, capacity building and greater aid on one hand, improved governance and resource utilization on the other – offers the best chance for progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. The frustrating breakdown at Cancun and the continued slow progress on aid flows and governance reform show how difficult is the task we face. But while millions of people are denied adequate food, water, housing and satisfaction of basic needs, we cannot let up, and we cannot fail. As President Wolfensohn said at the UN General Assembly this week, “if indeed we are to address the questions of success on the Monterrey agenda, then it is necessary for each of us to lift our game, developed countries, developing countries, and international institutions.”
We also have an obligation to hear the voices of the people who were not in Monterrey or Doha or Johannesburg or Cancun, or here in Zhuhai, but who are living on less than a dollar a day in so many parts of the world. More than that, we have an obligation to make sure their voices can be heard, and that their concerns are known, and their lives improved. We have seen welcome progress in recent years, as the growing number of civic organizations and people’s groups and the spread of information technology have given more opportunity for the poor and excluded to be heard. But we must do more to amplify their voices and give them a seat at the table, whether in their village or at the global level, among nations. Stability, growth and equity will remain out of reach until those voices are heard in every forum where important decisions are made. Here, too, China can play a leading role in helping to ensure that the voice of the poor is heard in the global community.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the importance of the principles presented in the Zhuhai Declaration, which identifies a sound set of guidelines for future development policy. I would also like to assure you of the World Bank’s continued commitment to developing countries and the world community to achieve global growth with equity.
Thank you. |
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