Remarks at the United Nations Security Council

 

Well, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let me say how grateful I am to you, Mr. President, for this invitation, which is the second in history to a President of the World Bank to attend a meeting of the Security Council, the first having been extended four years ago when we came together to discuss the impact of AIDS as a security issue.  And important as that issue was and is, let me say immediately that I'm delighted that you should be addressing this question at this Council at a time when the words of Iraq, Afghanistan, conflict interventions, and resolutions in terms of the political side are uppermost in the minds of people.

And the reason that I am so pleased to be here is that we feel in our institution that the issue of conflict prevention and of conflict resolution and rebuilding, which is the subject of the discussion today, can best be looked at from the causes of conflict and the methodologies of peace, some of which the Secretary General has referred.

And basically we have a fairly intuitive and not very complicated notion that if someone has a job and if they have hope, they're much less likely to go out and shoot you.  This is not a very complex concept.  I am happy to say that we did do studies to prove that rather obvious point, and I can quote you the studies done by our distinguished colleagues in the institution, which clearly state, and I quote, that "Our research suggests that the lack of economic opportunity and resulting competition for scarce resources, more than ethnic, political, and ideological issues, lie at the root of most conflicts over the last 30 years."

And just in terms of my own experience since I've been at the Bank, whether it be in Iraq, whether it be in Afghanistan, West Bank-Gaza, Yemen, East Timor, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in all these places where there has been tension and in many cases conflict, we've gone in and the very thing that one needs to look at, after some peace has been restored and after one has addressed fundamental social issues of education and health and infrastructure, going along with that is the question of how one establishes a framework in which business can commence.

And let me say here we give a lot of attention to international investment, and I'm particularly proud that Mr. Von Pierer is here at this meeting because of the work that his company has done globally.  But four times the amount of international investment is done domestically.  And so when one talks of business, one really needs to think in terms of creating an environment locally in which local investment can be encouraged so that small and medium-size enterprise and entrepreneurship can, in fact, flourish.  And a lot of this was addressed in the recent study that was done by Paul Martin and Ernesto Zedillo in response to a request from the Secretary General.

So the proposition which we basically believe is that dealing with the first question of conflict prevention, the first thing one needs to do is to have a growing economy in which people share.  Again, Mr. President, we did a study of 60,000 poor people in 60 countries, and we came up, again, with an answer that one might have concluded intuitively.  The answer was that poor people, like rich people, want to live in peace, want to have their community.  They do not want charity.  They want an opportunity.  They want for the women not to be beaten up, and for their children they want hope.

And in a world today where we have 2.8 billion out of our 6 billion under the age of 25 and 1.5 billion under the age of 15, and in the next 25 years 2 billion more people entering our planet in the developing world, the crucial challenge, as again has been identified by the Secretary General, is how are we going to find opportunity for our youth to work.  If they don't have work, then they're frustrated.  Their immediate instinct is not to go out and create a war.  But they are subject to influences from the outside from people who are malicious to either hide within their number or to use them for unlawful and offensive purposes.

So for us in our institution, we're devoting a tremendous amount of time to trying to see how we can meet the needs of these 60,000 people, and people like them, which is a very simple need.  How do you give them an opportunity to work in an equitable environment?  And here one addresses a number of the questions that the Secretary General referred to in terms of the legal framework which you can establish, the protection of rights, the offense against corruption, and establishing an opportunity for people to live in a stable environment.

This is what we're told by people in developing countries they want, and it's not surprising.  And, in fact, the study was useful, but probably not necessary in terms of intuitive thinking.

But we have done the work and proven in every way that we can that giving people hope is the best way to avoid conflict.  Giving them an investment in their lives and a chance to think of their children and give their children opportunity is the best way to stop them going out and creating conflict.

So when one talks of the issue in the Security Council of the prevention of conflict, central to that is the very simple notion of giving people work, giving them an opportunity.  And so for that reason, I think this subject is really important in this body, because we're spending $900 billion on defense annually, Mr. President, and we're spending $50 billion a year, or a little more, on development.  And I rather feel if we spent $900 billion on development and getting people to have jobs and go into business, we probably wouldn't need more than $50 billion for defense.

This Council could then become an Economic and Social Council--

[Laughter.]

And it might be a lot more pleasant for you and a lot less dramatic to be able to deal with hope rather than to deal with crises.  And that is why, Mr. President, I think you have chosen a very important subject today.

May I also say that in relation to conflict resolution and the building of peace, in all the cases that I've mentioned I can give you examples that we, very often in conjunction with UNDP and other agencies, may I say, have as the primary function in terms of establishing peace, getting business going again within a legal and appropriate framework which protects rights.  I may add also an environmentally sound framework.

And all this is absolutely coherent with and consistent with the millennium objectives established in 2000, which, again, the Secretary General and we and others are seeking to pursue, which sets forth objectives of what we need to do if we're to have a peaceful and appropriate world.  And all the heads of government came in and said we have to deal with the question of poverty.  They didn't come in with Millennial Goals which related to targets for military expenditure.  They came in and said the targets are human.  The targets are:  let's get people to work, let's reduce poverty, let's bring about growth, and let's give people an investment in hope and in their lives.  That's what they said.

And so what we do, not surprisingly, before and after conflict, is to try and establish conditions in which business can flourish, both international investment and local investment.

For that reason, Mr. President, I think that your choice of subject is admirable.  The solution, of course, is not simple.  You don't just open the door for investment.  It's within the framework of a legal system, of capacity at government level, of building financial systems that are transparent, fighting corruption--all of which were the things that were said in Monterrey and Johannesburg and in NEPAD, the African plan for development.

So I salute you in putting this subject on the agenda.  We're very proud in the Bank to be working with your agencies in terms of this issue.  And let me say that it is a joy to think in terms of issues of conflict by looking at the question of what are the causes of conflict.  And the main cause of conflict is lack of hope, and hope can be given by business and by jobs.

Thank you, Mr. President.