JAMES D. WOLFENSOHN, PRESIDENT THE WORLD BANK PRESENTS THE THIRD ANNUAL RICHARD W. SNOWDON LECTURE INTERFAITH CONFERENCE OF METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON  [TRANSCRIPT PREPARED FROM A TAPE RECORDING.]  P R O C E E D I N G S MR. WOLFENSOHN: President McGuire, Sheila Cast [ph], Clark Lobenstein [ph]-- [Disturbance in the audience.] MS. : We're going to have questions after President Wolfensohn's lecture to us, and we'd ask everyone to write them on their--you have cards at your desk, 4 by 6 cards in your seat, and we would welcome your questions. After the lecture, we'll collect them and pose as many as possible to President Wolfensohn. We'll give special preference to students who will be taking part in the essay contest. And so, students, if that means you, mark that on your cards, but we will take as many questions as possible after the lecture. MR. WOLFENSOHN: I think he was jealous of the conch shell and the chauffeur. He felt it necessary to blow a whistle. Let me again thank you, Madam President, and you, Sheila Cast, Clark Lobenstein and Richard Snowdon for the opportunity of joining you in what was a remarkable celebration of faith, and a recommitment to the things that I think all of us, from whatever religion, care about, a sense of justice, a sense of equity and a sense of hope for people in our community in Washington and throughout the world. As President of the World Bank I have a distinct challenge, which is to work with developing countries, the 5 billion people our of the 6 billion on our planet, who inhabit those countries that are in development. But it does not stop me or my colleagues in the Bank from recognizing that we are welcome in a community here in Washington that is diverse itself and which itself has needs almost as various as the needs that we serve internationally. So tonight it is a special pleasure to know that as we join together, we're thinking not just of the metropolitan community, not just of the global community, but a single community of humanity which exists on our planet and which shares similar hopes and aspirations wherever people find themselves. We did a study in these last years of 60,000 poor people around the world in 60 countries that live in poverty, and the not-surprising result of that survey was that people who live in poverty throughout the world have the same hopes and aspirations of those of us here who do not live in poverty. They want a chance to live in peace. They want a chance to have hope for their children. They want their children to be educated. The women do not want to be beaten. They want an opportunity. They're not looking for charity. They're looking for opportunity. They're looking for a chance, and they're not begging for help. They're looking for an opportunity to develop themselves. This was the result of our study, in many languages, in many parts of the world. And this is true also in our own community here in Washington, where we see the problems of poverty, where we see the problems of aspirations of men and women to fulfill their lives in dignity and hope, and where organizations such as those that come together in the IFC are so important in giving them opportunity. I'm very proud that my own organization, the World Bank, is participating in this community in ways that I think are very constructive, and I'm very happy that we're doing it in a number of cases with the faith-based communities. We take people from drug rehabilitation in the missions, to date, more than 100-- [Tape change.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: [Continues] -- on their resume. We then place them in jobs elsewhere in the community, and we've now expanded that same proposition to Egypt, and more recently to Russia, and we look forward soon to do it in the Ukraine and Philippines, taking people that are disadvantaged, the drug abusers, orphans, or people that just have had a rough time, and give them an opportunity, an opportunity so often linked with faith that we all represent here tonight. But my purpose was set as talking about the Millennium Challenges for Faith and Development, a New Partnership to Reduce Poverty and Strengthen Conservation. I am very happy that Martin Palmer [ph], my colleague from United Kingdom is here tonight, who himself has led the way so much in linking the faith-based communities with the causes of the environment and conservation. What are the challenges that we're facing? We have in our planet of 6 billion, close to 3 billion people that live under $2 a day. We have a billion 200 million people that live under $1 a day. We have a billion and a half people that don't have access to clean water. We have 3 billion people that do not have access to sanitation. And we have 130 million children that are not at school, and we have rates of infant and maternal mortality in some countries that are hundred times the rate in this country. And so at the Millennium Assembly of Global Leaders, the global leaders met and they said, let's look at what these Millennium Challenges are to which I've been asked to speak. And they concluded that the Millennium Challenges were not issues of money or growth, which they could easily have addressed, but that the Millennium Challenges for our planet were to give a sense of equity and justice to people throughout the world. The first challenge was to halve the percentage of people in poverty by the year 2015. Subsequent challenges which they set related to halving infant mortality, halving maternal mortality, by the year 2005 to get all children into school, to protect our environment including the seas as well as the air. And these were the high-flown statements that were made by nearly 200 leaders of countries throughout the world, setting these as the objectives, and saying that without these objectives there could be no social justice, there could be no peace. Following that, in Monterrey Mexico and in Johannesburg in South Africa, the rich and the poor countries came together to look at the question of how these objectives could be achieved. And the rich countries said, "We will help. We will help by building capacity, we will help by opening our markets for trade, and we will increase the level of aid that we give to developing countries." And the developing countries, for their part, said, "We must do our side of the bargain. We must strengthen our capacity in government, we must protect rights by including a review of our legal systems and justice systems to protect rights. We must address the issues of our financial systems and the clarity of our financial systems and the transparency of them, and we must combat corruption." This was the bargain that was entered with great hope on the part of both sides of the spectrum of developed and developing countries. Then a new dimension came in on September the 11th, when the world discovered that there was no wall separating the rich and the poor countries, when there was a visual image of the imaginary wall between the rich and poor coming down, as the World Trade Center collapsed and as we saw the walls of the Pentagon collapsing on its eastern side. So for anyone that thought that the issues of poverty or the issues of development were outside this wall, that day made people recognize that the two worlds were together, and that globalization in the broader sense, the linkage by health, by environment, by crime, by drugs, by trade, by finance, by migration, by almost any dimension you could think of, meant that we were linked together in an inevitable way. For those who thought about it, that in fact the issue of poverty somewhere had an impact of poverty everywhere. That is why I was delighted when this group, which has looked at the immediate area surrounding us, and we signed tonight to that objective?, but so many of the leaders have already talked to me, including the President of this college, tonight about how we can conserve and develop the broader community internationally, not as a matter of charity but as a matter of what is right, as a matter of understanding that justice cannot be confined behind a wall, but that justice applies to humanity in general. So the objective of our institution and those that work in the development field with us is to try and address the challenges facing this global community, the challenges that are addressed in the community, the need for education, for health, for poverty, for housing, all those things that this group IFC addresses. But for us the level is more acute and the numbers are enormous, with a billion, 200 million people living under $350 income a year. We also find that women are hugely disadvantaged in this world out there and that we have to address the questions of the rights of women as an essential element in the whole de velopment paradigm. Now, why was I so keep to come to address this group tonight? Because the issue is not just one of money, but let me say parenthetically that even on the issue of money, we're not doing very well. The amount of money that is provided in development assistance today to the developing world from the rich world is of the order of $50 billion a year. That sounds like a lot of money, except that it is 0.2 percent of the income of the rich countries. How does it compare with other expenditures? $50 billion a year for development, and on the question of opening our markets for trade, we compare that with $350 billion which is spent by the rich countries in subsidizing production of food in those countries. And it compares with $900 billion which is being spent on military expenditures, so you have $50 billion for development, $350 billion on agricultural subsidies, and $900 billion on defense. I said the other day if we could spend $900 billion on development we'd probably only need $50 billion for defenses. [Laughter.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: But that was not well received at the Pentagon. [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: But indeed the point remains the same, that we've just got this issue of balance in achieving these goals wrong, and there really is a need for something that will change the direction, change the commitment, change the belief of those in leadership positions to address in a pragmatic and effective way the challenge that poverty presents us. It's a challenge that is right. It's also a challenge that is in our self interest. So this is the framework in which we are operating. But because I thought there was something missing, some years ago with the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and with his Highness the Aga Khan, we put together a group called the World Faith and Development Dialogue, and we have now met three times. I see some of the people in this room who actually have attended some of these meetings in Canterbury, and most recently before that in Washington, and the first meeting in Lambeth Palace in England. The idea of that was to do some of the things that are being done by IFC here in Washington, but to extend it to our world, to these 5 billion people. It would say to the communities of faith and to say to the international development institutions, "You're addressing the same questions of development, but you don't talk to each other." So George Carey and I and the Aga Khan, called this conference to try and see whether it would be possible to have the development institutions and the faiths come together in a way that would be constructive in dealing with the question of poverty. To my surprise, the first thing that we learned was that the faiths didn't talk to each other in most of the countries that we were operating. That came as something of a surprise to me, that there was no exchange of information, or very little, and indeed, there was quite often some hostility. The only thing that unified them was hostility to the World Bank. [Laughter.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: But that was a unifying factor. So we did manage to get them together basically to complain about us. But it was an effective mechanism because the possibility of confronting me and my colleagues and telling us what they thought of us was irresistible to many of the leaders of the faiths. [Laughter.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: So we brought them together, if albeit for a motive that I didn't enjoy, but nonetheless an opportunity for dialogue. I tell you that my own Board had equal feelings of anger towards the faiths from some of the countries represented on our Board, and so we were only able to do these meetings with a certain amount of clandestine effort, although they became very public after we got them launched. But what came out of these meetings was the possibility now of having quite a number of very practical initiatives, practical initiatives that relate particularly to AIDS, particularly to education, particularly to health. I mean how could one think of addressing the questions of education and health in sub-Saharan Africa and the 47 countries and nearly 600 million people if you didn't talk to the faiths that account for about half the education and half the health care in the continent of Africa? And yet this was going on. There was no contact. But now we have the beginnings of this contact, and indeed some 15 separate projects which were written up covering everything from health to education to AIDS to development, community-based development in countries as various as the African states to Central Asia. I again pay tribute to Martin Farmer(Palmer), where we have worked with the faiths in terms of the environment. I well remember being in Mongolia with Martin and my wife, Elaine, as we went into a temple where we consecrated the mountains in that wonderful country, and where the faiths are being used to develop the notion of environmental protection through very real, a sense of faith and belief, and that addressed those issues. And in Martin's excellent book on this, there are many other examples, starting in Lebanon and moving thereafter. I want you to see, Martin, that I've actually read the book, and I would commend it to you. But this issue of bringing the faiths together with the cause of humanity and the environment is something that is not just a dream, it's not something that cannot happen, but I suggest to you today is something that must happen, because as we see the conflict in our world, as we see the lack of commitment to development, as we recognize that funding is not forthcoming, as we recognize that in country after country in the rich world the preoccupations are with domestic issues, with budget deficits, with defense, and today the international issues are confined to Iraq, Afghanistan terrorism, we find that the focus on this monumental body of humanity is being pushed behind us. If it were a static situation, you might say, "Well, it will gradually improve." But the situation is not static. In the next 25 years our world grows from 6 billion to 8 billion, and all but 50 million people go to developing countries, so that the world of our children I the year 2030 is going to be a world of 8 billion people, of which 7 billion are in developing countries. This reality is inevitable, but the understanding of the impact of this is simply neither appreciated nor understood. And the human dimension of this in terms of what should motivate us, is not going to come just from the financial analysis in terms of the fact that the developing world is going to be growing at twice the rate of the rich world, and that in the year 2050, 40 percent of the world's earnings will come from developing countries. It's possible to make an economic case, but there needs to be something else. There needs to be something greater than leadership based on economics or leadership based on military power. In our country, United States, there is a need to project ourselves as not just the richest country in the world or the most powerful country in the world, but the country that stands for morality, for ethics, for faith, for equity, for justice, for spirituality. There's a need for a greater dream. There's a need for something higher, and I say this not just as President of the World Bank or as a pragmatist, I say it as a human being, there's a need for somehow to gain the inner strength to be able to say that our country and that the wealthy countries have an obligation which transcends economics and which deals with the essence of humanity and what is right. What better place to start than with the faiths? Sadly, some of the faiths let us down. Extremism in many faiths really locks out the real essence of many of our faiths. But what is essential is that we get to the core of what was represented tonight, a core of coming together, a core of caring, a core of belief, a recommitment to justice, a recommitment to what is right in all our faiths, which is a recognition that the individual matters and that it is our function to care about brothers and sisters and to give them hope, and to give them opportunity. This is at the core of most of our faiths. It is not something that is a distant quest, it's something that can start with each of us, and each of us can stand out in front of others and change the direction of the way our world is going. I again commend IFC for what it is doing in this community, a community in which the Bank is happy and proud to participate. But I also say to you that our community is a global community, and that our community cannot be safe, and our hopes and aspirations cannot be satisfied, and our faiths cannot be fulfilled unless we come together to try and make the world a better place. Thank you. [Applause.] MS. : Thank you, Dr. Wolfensohn. We appreciate your insights and we're going to follow up on them with questions from the audience in just a few minutes. If you have a question, write it on the card at your seat and volunteers, in just a few minutes, will be coming to pick them up. As I mentioned, priority in the questions will go to students who are taking part in the essay contest, so if you're one of those students, flag that on your card so you have a better chance of getting your question in front of Mr. Wolfensohn. When you're written them, pass it to the nearest aisle to you and volunteers will come. President Wolfensohn follows admirably the first two Snowdon lecturers. They were Ambassador Andrew Young, who addressed the issue of faith-based initiatives, and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who spoke about how we live our faith after 9/11. Cardinal McCarrick was with us earlier this evening, and he regretted that he had to leave. When Richard Snowdon agreed to lend his name to this lecture, he insisted that it be a lecture with legs, that is, he wanted to be sure IFC would not present just another talking head even on an important issue of social justice from a faith perspective. Mr. Snowdon wanted to be sure that IFC would provide tangible follow up to the ideas presented. To that end, IFC is proud to announce two legs of tonight's lecture. First, as many of the young people here already know and as I've mentioned, the Washington Post has provided funding for three $1,000 scholarships. They'll be awarded to a high school student, an undergraduate and a graduate student for the best essays, 3 to 5 pages in length, based on tonight's lecture. To enter, students must pick up an official essay cover sheet, embossed with the IFC seal at the Scholarship Essay table. That's just inside Main Hall, the large stone building to the left of the chapel. You can pick this up after the lecture if you don't have yours already, and you can go ahead and ask a question now even without that. The second leg of this lecture is that the IFC is partnering with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Earth Conservation Corps to development the Religious Partnership for the Anacostia. This new initiative grew out of the IFC's Anacostia Pilgrimage last Labor Day. It operates in the model of development and conservation efforts that Mr. Wolfensohn spoke of. Both of these initiatives are described in your program tonight on pages 14 and 15. Now let me tell you about Richard W. Snowdon, a distinguished Washingtonian. He's made an impact not only through his law practice, but especially through his leadership in nearly a dozen are nonprofit organizations. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Conference and chairing IFC's Advisory Council, Mr. Snowdon is very active with groups such as Children's Hospital, For Love of Children, the Black Student Fund and Arena Stage. He works hard with each of them. He gives generously of his time, talent and treasure. Please join me in expressing IFC's gratitude to Richard Snowdon. [Applause.] MS. : Mr. Snowdon, would you come forward? [Applause.]. MR. SNOWDON: Thank you, Sheila, that's very generous. I see a lot of young people in the room and I would offer a piece of advice. Try to aspire to positions of leadership, but never get yourself in the position that I'm in tonight where I have to follow somebody who is clearly brighter and much more articulate than I am. My job tonight is to say thank you to a lot of people. First of all, I want to thank all of you for being here. There are a lot of other places you could be and other things you could be doing tonight, and I appreciate your coming here, your support of IFC. For those of you who know us, thank you for being here. For those of you who don't, I hope you find this something that you want to get involved with and engaged with. I certainly want to thank Trinity, President MaGuire, Barbara, and all of the staff. I thought it was particularly profound that tonight we had a conversation about a very secular issue in this most holy place. We've had our prior lectures at Georgetown and GW in secular spaces, and I just found myself sitting here tonight saying that the conversation that we had with Mr. Wolfensohn about what's going on in the world really needed to be held in the holy space that we're in And I'd like to ask Pat if she's come up. I've got something I'd like to-- [Applause.] MS. : Thank you. [Applause.] MR. SNOWDON: I'd also like to second what Sheila said about, my thanks to the Washington Post and to Eric Rand, who's head of Community Relations there for sponsoring the scholarships for the students. We think it's terribly important that an event like this continues, intellectually challenges all of us to think about what was said tonight and what we personally can do about it and not let it simply be just another nice speech. I want to offer a personal thanks to a staff member at the IFC, who's walking down--to Stacy Smith. [Applause.] MR. SNOWDON: Who after two years at IFC is leaving to go to seminary up in New York. She's the mother of this event, and I think it's extraordinarily important that a young person engages with an interfaith dialogue, finds her own sense of future and goes to ministry, and so I wish her godspeed and the best from all of us. [Applause.] MR. SNOWDON: And finally, of course, I want to thank the World Bank, not Jim personally, but the World Bank for lending President Wolfensohn to us tonight to challenge us all. I think the words that he spoke to us are enormously daunting, when talks about 6 billion people and 8 billion people and we're living in a community of 5 or 600,000, we say, how can we really respond to that challenge? I think there is a way we respond to it. We do it individually. We find our own sense of what we must do. We are in fact in the capital of the most country in the world, and if we do things right here, that can resonate elsewhere. So we have an opportunity to take leadership. I think the challenge has been thrown out to us tonight, and I just want to say I think putting our little community of a half million people in Washington, 3-1/2 million people in the Washington Metropolitan area, into a 6 or 8 billion person global context is enormously important, and I cannot thank Jim Wolfensohn enough. [Applause.] MR SNOWDON: You have enough stuff behind your desk, I'm sure, but we would like to add that to it. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much. [Applause.] MS. SNOWDON: This is for Sheila, and I had them backwards. MS. : My goodness! [Applause.] MS. : It's doubly special since it was first given to Jim Wolfensohn. Thank you very, very much. I was supposed to say at this point, thank you, Mr. Snowdon, but I didn't realize I was thanking him personally as well as on behalf of all of us, and thanks for everything you do for the Interfaith Council. The volunteers have been collecting questions I know, because a few have filtered up to me. If yours has not been collected, wave it and somebody will come for it. Let me call your attention to the evaluation form inserted in your program. Please take a few moments between now and 9 o'clock if you have not filled it out, to do so. You can leave it in your pew, or there will be boxes in the back of the chapel. We are eager to hear your suggestions about who the next Snowdon Lecturer should be. One last note before we start Q&A, and that is your commitment cards. If you didn't fill it out during the ceremony, your recommitment that began our evening, please do so and you can leave that also in your pew or in the boxes in the back of church. Now, questions and answers. We will go until about 8:55 and we will start with this question. Here I need to go to glasses because not all of you write in very large type. Mr. Wolfensohn, granting that more needed funding is not forthcoming and the Millennium Challenge Account is in danger of not reaching its goals, what concrete steps are faith-based communities expected to make to address such global policy issues, and do they have a place at the table? MR. WOLFENSOHN: I think we can't give up on the pursuit of two things. One is the improvement of governance in developing countries, but the second thing is that we can't give up on trying to at least double the amount of development assistance, and we also can't give up on trying to get the trade round, the so-called Doha Trade Round continued to allow developing countries to export. Negotiations are going on now in relation to restarting those trade negotiations, and some people, but all too few, are addressing the question of a level of development assistance. I think what we have to do is to awaken communities to the need because they can impact the leadership and maybe faith leaders can do that in their speeches each week. Certainly it is going to come from a movement of voters that you'll get this because poor people in other countries don't have a vote, and if you're trying to change the policies of the rich countries, a lot of it has to come from within. So I do think actually that what we can do is to try to influence the various faith leaders to pick this up as a challenge and to do it more than once. Most faith leaders once in a while talk about development, but as a continuing commitment, it is rare, and I think if going forth from tonight was that possibility, I think we would have achieved a lot. MS. : Thank you. I think this question in a way follows on that. It's a little lengthy, but let me read it all. You spoke of the two-thirds of the world's population living in absolute poverty, indeed a crisis of faith and morality, the greatest challenge and struggle of our time. As evidenced by the call for Jubilee debt relief by many religious communities around the world, can you speak of ways that the World Bank is seeking to lift people out of poverty creatively, compassionately, humanely, other than loans and causing greater debt? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Yes, I can. The first thing-- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: The first thing that we did was to start an initiative called the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative to relive-- MS. : I didn't-- MR. WOLFENSOHN: It's called the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative. It's an initiative which is to forgive debt, and we succeeded in getting an amount of $51 billion that has been forgiven or is in the course of being forgiven for developing countries. But the real issue on the debt issue comes in two ways. The first is that for all too many countries the debt burden is great, but to forgive the debt it's necessary to get the rich countries to agree to forgive it. Institutions like my own are severely limited on what we can forgive because we don't actually own all the money. An institution like the Bank--I remember responding to a faith leader about the request that we should forgive all the loans of the World Bank. And I said, "Well, I'm very happy to do that, but do you understand that your church has just bought $50 million of World Bank bonds?" [Laughter.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: "And if we forgive the debt, we cannot repay you the bonds because we have only $30 billion of capital and we borrow the $120 billion in the market." So for intermediary institutions like the Bank, we could forgive $30 billion and give back all the capital that we have, and then we would be out of business, which for many people probably wouldn't matter, but the limit to what an institution like ours can do is the limit of our capital because we borrow the rest of the money in the market. That's for the Bank. And we have already forgiven close to $4 billion in our capital, and are continuing to press for debt relief. There's another institution called IDA which we run, which has $110 billion of loans to developing countries. And that money is funded by donations from rich countries. And we could forgive all of that--except that the rich countries are counting on repayment of that money over a period of 30 years in order to re-lend it on to other countries. So the way it works is that this money is loaned at no interest for 30 years. It starts to come back, and we have roughly $2 to $3 billion a year coming back. And if we were to forgive the whole of the debt, which I'd be quite happy to do, we would not then get the $3 billion a year coming back. And since we're only given $3 billion of new money, we'd only be able to lend $3 billion because we don't have the money being repaid. The essence of debt relief, I'm afraid, comes down to the same question as the availability of new loans. Will countries like the United States or Germany or France or the United Kingdom or those countries that are rich be prepared to make up the money that is not repaid in the form of either grants or new loans? If they're not, we can certainly forgive the old debt, but we can then only lend half the money of that we are now lending. Now, I should add one other thing: that of the $7 billion that we're now doing in IDA, loans to the poorest countries, which are done for 30 years at no interest, we're now doing a billion and a half a year in terms of grants, which don't have to be repaid at all. And that, frankly, is a result of an initiative by the United States to say let's grant a billion and a half of the monies. But the worry that other countries now have is that if you make those grants, then nothing will come back later and, therefore, it will reduce later the amount of money that can be loaned. So the answer on debt relief is not as simple as it looks, but it all comes back to the national will for the forgiveness of debt. And the final thing I'd say on that is that political will can make a big difference. In the case of Iraq, where there is $120 billion of outstanding debt, the United States has got behind an effort to have at least two-thirds of that forgiven. And so it is likely that $80 billion worth of that debt will be forgiven. If that happens, it will assuredly bring about greater pressure from all other countries to have their debt forgiven, given that the totality of what has been forgiven under HIPC is $50 billion. And so people will say, Do you have to be invaded in order to have debt relief? And this is a problem which is, I think, coming up. But I'd like people to understand that the money that the Bank has loaned is not the Bank's money. It's money which we borrow in the marketplace. And, quite sadly, we're obligated to pay back five-sixths of that money because only one-sixth is the capital of the Bank. So it gets back, I regret to say, not to my wish. It gets back, again, to the question of what is the willingness of the countries that own us--and 184 countries own us--to allow debt relief. MS. : Let me follow up. If there is pressure following whatever happens to Iraq's debts from other countries, is there any advice you would give to people of faith in this room as to how to capitalize on that politically, how to move ahead with their agenda for further debt relief? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, there has been a huge, as you know, Jubilee Campaign. I should just tell you a little anecdote. Before the Jubilee Campaign, I actually started this HIPC debt relief program. It was the first time anyone had addressed the question of institutional debt of the poorer countries. The first time. And for two weeks, amongst groups that are antagonistic now, I was a hero for two weeks. In fact, they gave me a big party and they gave me champagne, and they said this is a great breakthrough. And I remember saying to them at the time, I wish you'd remember this because two weeks from now you're going to be coming and saying it's not enough and that we're tight-fisted and so on. Well, that's exactly what happened. And we had a short-lived moment of glory by addressing this question--over a lot of criticism, I might say. The thing that needs to be understood is that people need to understand the linkage of three things: debt relief, trade, and increased aid. And they all get to the same question: To what extent are the rich countries prepared to give up either their markets or their assets for the benefit of poorer countries? And it is the same issue. And if I could get that understood and if faith leaders could get it more broadly understood, I think it might be more effective, because I think a simple call for debt relief without relating it to aid and without relating it to trade is probably not going to get very far. MS. : I'm getting some advice that you should look less at me and talk more into the microphone so people can hear you better. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Okay. You're just so charming. [Laughter.] MS. : Thank you so much. This is a question from Peter Fargo at Georgetown University. I assume he's a student. And he asks: Will the World Bank provide an office for faith-based development and a grant program for work done outside the World Bank? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, that is a wonderful question. The answer is no. And the reason for that, I might tell you, is because our Board, including the United States, and other members of the Board, have vigorously opposed the mixing of faith and the work that we do. They say that the faith-based organizations--it's the old story of church and state. You don't want to mix the running of the country with any sort of infection from the faiths. That was the reason that we did the World Faith and Development Dialogue, and separately funded through external fundraising, the Office of WFDD, which now is in London, and where we are making grants of the type that the questioner would like. So we're doing a lot of these programs, but it's being done outside the ambit of the Bank officially, except that in the instance of issues like AIDS, where we've loaned over a billion dollars, and in many cases--in fact, at least half of that is grants--at least half the money is going to NGOs, and a significant amount of that is now going to faith-based NGOs. So the funding is going through the governments, but the distribution agent in the case of AIDS and increasingly in health is faith-based organizations. So I would love to have a faith-based organization in the place, but I'm a voice of one, maybe two, and the reason is that the national governments do not give homes to faith-based organizations typically in their own administrative setups, and they're just not prepared to let us do it. What we can do is to reach out. My colleague Enrique Iglesias at the Inter-American Development Bank has a whole program going on, but it is a Bank employee who is running it. We're doing it. The International Labor Organization is doing it and have on staff a former reverend who is working on such activities. But the simple answer is that the Board would not agree to it. MS. : A question from a student: How do you respond to the argument that the World Bank is not democratic? MR. WOLFENSOHN: By saying that-- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: It is not democratic in terms of one country, one vote. And it goes back to the history of the institution. The institution was started after World War II as a reconstruction institution and the capital was subscribed by rich countries. And they then decided, under John Maynard Keynes, that they would treat it like a private company and that the votes in that company would be in proportion to the percentage of the capital that was subscribed, like a normal corporation. Since that time, the rich countries have reduced their interests, but the G-8, the richest countries in the world, still control of the order of 50 percent of the votes of the Bank. And 140 countries have maybe 30 percent of the votes of the Bank. So we have asked the countries to look at the question of changing the structure. We in management have given them many suggestions, but, again, it gets back to the Ministers. Now, we do have a Minister from South Africa, who is in charge of the Development Committee of the Bank, who is currently seeking to poll the shareholders to see if there will be changes that they could bring about. The first change they've brought about is a willingness to strengthen the capacities of the developing countries so that they can present themselves and their issues better. They're giving them a better voice. But I have to say to you that I do not think in my immediate lifetime I'm likely to see significant changes in the voting pattern. But I do think it will be opened up in the next one to two years. This is an issue for our shareholders, and, again, if you think it should be -- [tape ends]. -- and there is an outcry today about a greater form of democracy both in terms of voting in the institution and in the selection of leadership in the institutions. And I think that will play out over the coming years, but I don't think it will be tomorrow. MS. : Another challenge: Has the World Bank published any statistics of the percent or number of projects that actually achieve their development objectives? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Yes, we have, and we monitor them rather carefully, and it's running around 70 percent at the moment. But the development objectives are the ones that were articulated in the original program design. That does not mean that they have not been worthwhile or they have not been useful. What it means is they have not met the objective for which they were passed by the Board. And at around 70 percent, I think the Bank is probably top of the league tables at the moment in terms of effectiveness of what we're doing. This is a very tough business. We are called upon to lend to the toughest cases. If the commercial community won't lend or give, then it comes to us. And it's quite tough to do projects in some countries where you would prefer not to go but where you have a duty to go and where you know that there is inadequate strength in governance and inadequate strength very often morally. And this was particularly true in the '80s when many of the projects which are coming home to roost were done on the basis not of development initiatives but on the basis of political initiatives. I remind you that that was the time in the Cold War, money was flowing to countries because of the battle that was going on between capitalism and communism. And, sadly, we still have the vestiges of that, and we still have leaders around who were used to getting money because of politics. And it takes a little while to change, but I think change is coming, and we have to do everything we can to bring it along. MS. : Someone asks, Can the less developed countries be expected to compete effectively in a global free trade system? Is free trade really fair? Can it really promote development? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, I personally think- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: I personally think that it can. The interesting thing, of course, is that people in our country complain about free trade also, as you may have noticed, and so that it is not just an issue for poor countries. It is a global question of commitment to free trade. When I talk about 300 billion or more in agricultural subsidies, that is not agricultural subsidies in poor countries. That's agricultural subsidies in rich countries. And so the issue of free trade is a matter of commitment and of economic practice and theory. My own experience has been that it is better to have a global market into which developing countries can enter slowly and with protection and be allowed the opportunity of training and support so that they can participate in greater markets. Literally, last week, I was in West Africa talking to 15 Presidents of African states. The highest tariffs in Africa are between the states, between the African states. They're not between the African states and Europe or the United States. But the highest tariffs are there, and it was clear amongst the leadership that one of the first advances that could be made was establishing a West African free trade area. But most of them were concerned and anxious that they give them access to U.S. markets and the European markets because their own markets are too small. But, clearly, their immediate entry into it is going to be disadvantageous because they don't have the experience, they don't have the technology, they don't have the marketing skills in many cases. And so they need time to work through what are the areas in which they can be competitive. But all our evidence suggests that building walls around a country does not help the country. What you need to do is to have a measured approach to entry into the global markets, and that if you do that, you have a real chance of improving the lives of people in those countries. Of course, there are many admirable examples, many of them in East Asia, and a huge one today in terms of China, which, after all, is one-fifth of the world and which today is 4 percent of global trade, and with the United States 13 percent, but by the year 2017 it will be the same, 12 percent each. So certainly China is a country in which there are a lot of poor people and they've taken 300 million people out of poverty in the last 25 years. But that is a country which is demonstrating that it is possible to compete on a global scale. And some of the cries in this country at the moment are about China. And, indeed, it's one of the key issues. MS. : This question, I think, follows in the same vein, but adds a philosophical layer to it. How can free market capitalism and spirituality work to liberate the people of this world? One is inherently selfish. I presume a reference to capitalism. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, first of all, I think people should be allowed to choose what system they want to live under. I'm very much against going with a patented solution to every country. And one of the other things that I have been vigorous about, in addition to this issue we're discussing tonight, was the importance of looking and preserving culture in the countries in which you operate so that people can have the culture that they want. Less than five days ago, my wife and I were in Ghana, and we visited the Ashanti tribe and visited the Asantahini (ph), the leader of the Ashanti Tribe, which is 8 million people. And we were received to, (?) enough, horns like we heard tonight, drums, a system of absolute beauty in terms of tribal customs. And we're working with the Ashantis to help them build the sort of society that they want. And the leader of the Ashantis is anxious to ensure that the rural community develops as he wants, but he wants to bring in also some industry and he wants to bring in computers and he wants to bring in modern education for his people. And this is not something which we're imposing. This is a decision which the tribal leadership has decided it wants to do, and I think that is the way that it should be done. I don't think we should go to countries and insist that they should follow one political framework or one economic framework if they want to follow another. I remember when I first went to Vietnam and met the Secretary General of the Communist Party, and we were talking about the programs of the Bank. He was particularly distant because he thought I was going to try something on him, and he told me that he had actually led the Vietnamese in the war against the Americans and that he didn't think that the Americans could teach him very much because he thought he'd won the war. And I guess he had in some ways. And he was determined that in their introduction to capitalism or free market activities, he was going to do it in a phased way, that he was going to work his way into it, that he was not going to liberate or liberalize his capital markets, that he was not going to privatize his companies, and that he was going to do it at his own pace and his own time. And I said, "Great, go ahead. We'll see how we can help you." If I'd come in with a solution which said you've got to do it immediately and I want it done by next week or you get no money, it wouldn't have been effective. He wouldn't have done it, and Vietnam wouldn't have had the support that it has. But seven years later, Vietnam is now competing in the market at the pace Vietnam wanted to do it. And I think that is possible within a free market system. I don't think you come in and insist to everybody that they do everything exactly the way you would do it if you lived in the United States or Australia or somewhere else. MS. : Let's take it one step further with this question: What are practical ways to engage religious mobilization in social justice? How can development projects foster a culture of respect, engagement, and interdependence? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, that's something that we are literally trying to do, and what I have learned is that it's not just convincing the religious leaders at the center any more than my conviction on something immediately convinces all the people in the World Bank that what I've suggested is right. Changing a culture takes a lot of time. It's taken me a lot of time in the World Bank and quite a lot of bruises. And so if you're trying to get religious cooperation on the ground, if you're trying to get people to work on development projects with other religions and with international institutions, it requires a lot of patience and a lot of training. And I'm fumbling here because I've got a list of 15 of these initiatives which we have undertaken. One in--well, I'll just give you a few, but the sort of things that we're doing is with the Avena AVINA(ph) Foundation and the Jesuit community in Latin America working in the school system. Another one is the program by the Aga Khan on childhood education in madrassas to try and make it more up-to-date. This is their decision, not mine. Community-led development in Colombia, working with Santa Giulio Egidio (ph), a remarkable Catholic organization in Albania and in the Balkans. In Sri Lanka, we've got a group that has been put together by religious leaders. In northern Uganda, Catholics, Anglicans, and Muslims. In the Philippines, a group put together by Christians, Muslims, and a Jewish leader. It's amazing what can happen if you can get to the ground level and you can convince the leaders on the ground. But if you have someone in Rome or if you have someone in Canterbury or you have someone wherever the leaders are and it doesn't get down to the field, you--it's wonderful to have the summit meetings, but what is needed is five to seven years of hard work out in the field with examples happening. And that is the way that you can get it done. The thing I have learned is that you don't bring about change, social change or change in direction, by edict. You can come out with the direction, but what needs to be done is meticulous follow-up and to be relentlessly boring in repeating what you want to get done for a long time. And so all I can suggest is that religious leaders do what they're quite often good at doing, as I remember listening to sermons, is to be relentlessly boring on this subject, and we'll get them--we'll bring about change. So perhaps that's a suggestion to all the leaders that are here today. MS. : We have just a few minutes left, and I want to plow through a couple of questions quickly. One, Mr. Wolfensohn, what do you have to say about the 19,000 people a day dying due to global economic policies the World Bank and IMF advocate and sometimes initiate, according to a UNICEF study? And there's more about structural adjustment. I presume you're aware of the study they're talking about. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, I'm actually surprised that UNICEF would say that it's because of the World Bank and the IMF, but if they do say it, I think it's wrong. It's very easy to put the Bank and the Fund in a box. It's very easy for people that are here, some young people, or even older people, to simply say that the problems of the world are because of an evil one, and that evil one happens to be the World Bank and the Monetary Fund. I have the pleasure of working with the World Bank, and I have 11,000 people working with me. They come from 140 different countries. They're remarkable people. They get up every day not thinking how they can ruin the lives of people. They get up every day thinking about how they can improve the world. This is not a vicious group of people. This is a group of people that are committing their lives to change--perhaps significantly more than many of the hecklers that you hear. And these are people-- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: And these are people that, in my judgment, cede no moral authority to anyone. The problem is that when you have the hecklers who come with a one-line intervention, they immediately assume, very often without knowledge, that they're in the moral high ground and because others will cheer with them that they're right. Well, if they think they're right, then let them do something about it and not heckle. Let them go out and work. In this community, I don't just talk about what we should do. I talked about the Anacostia River. I've been out on--whatever it's called--Kendall Island or Jackson Island for a day trying to clean it up. Every year I go and paint a house, not just finance it but go paint a house with colleagues, Christmas in April or whatever it's called. I challenge some of the critics to indicate that they do these things, too. But what I do is trivial compared to my colleagues, who spend their lives in these areas trying to improve the conditions of others. So I get pretty fed up when I hear the criticisms of people that have no idea what we're doing and who themselves do nothing. MS. : Let me squeeze in one more question-- [Applause.] MS. : How does the World Bank make women's work more visible in developed countries? MR. WOLFENSOHN: In developed countries. MS. : It says "developed." I'm not sure if the questioner means "developed." MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, we celebrated today International Women's Day, even though it's not International Women's Day; it's in March. But it's not--it's the 8th of March. It's not today. Because every year we celebrate it and we have the month in which we do it, and today was my opportunity to do that. And I think that you have to do it in your own way in your own organization. What we've done is to increase the visibility of women in the organization, to increase the recognition of women in the organization, to increase the intake of women in the organization, and to give them leadership positions not because of their sex but because they're good. And I find that that's a pretty good way to increase the visibility of women in an organization. We now have a woman Managing Director, one of four. We have ten Vice Presidents. We've just appointed the head of our insurance company a Japanese woman. We have an African woman who is a Managing Director, Mamphela Ramphele. And, frankly, we're sort of color-blind and gender-blind. I can tell you, when I was in Ghana just now and I was having dinner with the Prime Minister, it suddenly occurred to me that one of my three assistants was an African from Ghana and is a Ph.D. graduate who was one of the three people that worked with me, and I had one of my three personal secretaries is a Ghanaian woman. And I hadn't thought of it until I was sitting next to him that I had two Ghanaians working right next to me. And I think that we now feel in the Bank that you just don't--I mean, it would be improper for me to say that I don't notice women sometimes. Even in this church, I would be struck down if I said that. But I have to say that professionally in the organization, I believe we're approaching a position where sex and color doesn't matter. And I think if more people could do that, that would solve your problem of recognition of women in developed countries. MS. : Unfortunately, we have to bring this evening to a close. We have more questions, but no more time. [Applause.] MS. : Thank you, Dr. Wolfensohn, for your insights. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you. [Applause.] MS. : To close out our evening, the Executive Director of the Interfaith Conference, Reverend Clark Lobenstein, and its President, Dr. Carol Miller. REV. LOBENSTEIN: Thank you very much. Please note that in closing here, you have the opportunity, first of all, if you have not yet gotten your scholarship application form, which you need to apply for the three $1,000 scholarships, that you will do that at the table in the main hall. And there's also a book store there for the Potter's House, which three books: "The Millennium Challenges for Faith and Development"; "Faith in Conservation," whose author Martin Palmer is with us tonight from England; and "Faith in Development: A Partnership between the World Bank and the Churches of Africa." So those and other books are available. Please remain with us for the closing prayer by our President, Dr. Carol Miller, and remember to take back to the box your evaluation forms and your commitment cards so we can continue this work together. Carol, please, let us pray. [Closing prayer.l Questions and Answers Ms.Cast: Thank you, Dr. Wolfensohn. We appreciate your insights and we're going to follow up on them with questions from the audience in just a few minutes. If you have a question, write it on the card at your seat and volunteers, in just a few minutes, will be coming to pick them up. As I mentioned, priority in the questions will go to students who are taking part in the essay contest, so if you're one of those students, flag that on your card so you have a better chance of getting your question in front of Mr. Wolfensohn. When you're written them, pass it to the nearest aisle to you and volunteers will come. President Wolfensohn follows admirably the first two Snowdon lecturers. They were Ambassador Andrew Young, who addressed the issue of faith-based initiatives, and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who spoke about how we live our faith after 9/11. Cardinal McCarrick was with us earlier this evening, and he regretted that he had to leave. When Richard Snowdon agreed to lend his name to this lecture, he insisted that it be a lecture with legs, that is, he wanted to be sure IFC would not present just another talking head even on an important issue of social justice from a faith perspective. Mr. Snowdon wanted to be sure that IFC would provide tangible follow up to the ideas presented. To that end, IFC is proud to announce two legs of tonight's lecture. First, as many of the young people here already know and as I've mentioned, the Washington Post has provided funding for three $1,000 scholarships. They'll be awarded to a high school student, an undergraduate and a graduate student for the best essays, 3 to 5 pages in length, based on tonight's lecture. To enter, students must pick up an official essay cover sheet, embossed with the IFC seal at the Scholarship Essay table. That's just inside Main Hall, the large stone building to the left of the chapel. You can pick this up after the lecture if you don't have yours already, and you can go ahead and ask a question now even without that. The second leg of this lecture is that the IFC is partnering with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Earth Conservation Corps to development the Religious Partnership for the Anacostia. This new initiative grew out of the IFC's Anacostia Pilgrimage last Labor Day. It operates in the model of development and conservation efforts that Mr. Wolfensohn spoke of. Both of these initiatives are described in your program tonight on pages 14 and 15. Now let me tell you about Richard W. Snowdon, a distinguished Washingtonian. He's made an impact not only through his law practice, but especially through his leadership in nearly a dozen are nonprofit organizations. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Conference and chairing IFC's Advisory Council, Mr. Snowdon is very active with groups such as Children's Hospital, For Love of Children, the Black Student Fund and Arena Stage. He works hard with each of them. He gives generously of his time, talent and treasure. Please join me in expressing IFC's gratitude to Richard Snowdon. [Applause.] MS. Cast : Mr. Snowdon, would you come forward? [Applause.]. MR. SNOWDON: Thank you, Sheila, that's very generous. I see a lot of young people in the room and I would offer a piece of advice. Try to aspire to positions of leadership, but never get yourself in the position that I'm in tonight where I have to follow somebody who is clearly brighter and much more articulate than I am. My job tonight is to say thank you to a lot of people. First of all, I want to thank all of you for being here. There are a lot of other places you could be and other things you could be doing tonight, and I appreciate your coming here, your support of IFC. For those of you who know us, thank you for being here. For those of you who don't, I hope you find this something that you want to get involved with and engaged with. I certainly want to thank Trinity, President MaGuire, Barbara, and all of the staff. I thought it was particularly profound that tonight we had a conversation about a very secular issue in this most holy place. We've had our prior lectures at Georgetown and GW in secular spaces, and I just found myself sitting here tonight saying that the conversation that we had with Mr. Wolfensohn about what's going on in the world really needed to be held in the holy space that we're in And I'd like to ask Pat if she's come up. I've got something I'd like to-- [Applause.] MS. : Thank you. [Applause.] MR. SNOWDON: I'd also like to second what Sheila said about, my thanks to the Washington Post and to Eric Rand, who's head of Community Relations there for sponsoring the scholarships for the students. We think it's terribly important that an event like this continues, intellectually challenges all of us to think about what was said tonight and what we personally can do about it and not let it simply be just another nice speech. I want to offer a personal thanks to a staff member at the IFC, who's walking down--to Stacy Smith. [Applause.] MR. SNOWDON: Who after two years at IFC is leaving to go to seminary up in New York. She's the mother of this event, and I think it's extraordinarily important that a young person engages with an interfaith dialogue, finds her own sense of future and goes to ministry, and so I wish her godspeed and the best from all of us. [Applause.] MR. SNOWDON: And finally, of course, I want to thank the World Bank, not Jim personally, but the World Bank for lending President Wolfensohn to us tonight to challenge us all. I think the words that he spoke to us are enormously daunting, when talks about 6 billion people and 8 billion people and we're living in a community of 5 or 600,000, we say, how can we really respond to that challenge? I think there is a way we respond to it. We do it individually. We find our own sense of what we must do. We are in fact in the capital of the most country in the world, and if we do things right here, that can resonate elsewhere. So we have an opportunity to take leadership. I think the challenge has been thrown out to us tonight, and I just want to say I think putting our little community of a half million people in Washington, 3-1/2 million people in the Washington Metropolitan area, into a 6 or 8 billion person global context is enormously important, and I cannot thank Jim Wolfensohn enough. [Applause.] MR SNOWDON: You have enough stuff behind your desk, I'm sure, but we would like to add that to it. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much. [Applause.] MS. SNOWDON: This is for Sheila, and I had them backwards. MS. : My goodness! [Applause.] MS. Cast : It's doubly special since it was first given to Jim Wolfensohn. Thank you very, very much. I was supposed to say at this point, thank you, Mr. Snowdon, but I didn't realize I was thanking him personally as well as on behalf of all of us, and thanks for everything you do for the Interfaith Council. The volunteers have been collecting questions I know, because a few have filtered up to me. If yours has not been collected, wave it and somebody will come for it. Let me call your attention to the evaluation form inserted in your program. Please take a few moments between now and 9 o'clock if you have not filled it out, to do so. You can leave it in your pew, or there will be boxes in the back of the chapel. We are eager to hear your suggestions about who the next Snowdon Lecturer should be. One last note before we start Q&A, and that is your commitment cards. If you didn't fill it out during the ceremony, your recommitment that began our evening, please do so and you can leave that also in your pew or in the boxes in the back of church. Now, questions and answers. We will go until about 8:55 and we will start with this question. Here I need to go to glasses because not all of you write in very large type. Mr. Wolfensohn, granting that more needed funding is not forthcoming and the Millennium Challenge Account is in danger of not reaching its goals, what concrete steps are faith-based communities expected to make to address such global policy issues, and do they have a place at the table? MR. WOLFENSOHN: I think we can't give up on the pursuit of two things. One is the improvement of governance in developing countries, but the second thing is that we can't give up on trying to at least double the amount of development assistance, and we also can't give up on trying to get the trade round, the so-called Doha Trade Round continued to allow developing countries to export. Negotiations are going on now in relation to restarting those trade negotiations, and some people, but all too few, are addressing the question of a level of development assistance. I think what we have to do is to awaken communities to the need because they can impact the leadership and maybe faith leaders can do that in their speeches each week. Certainly this needs to come from a movement of voters seeking change here, because poor people in other countries don't have a vote here, so if you're trying to change the policies of the rich countries, a lot of it has to come from within. So I do think actually that what we can do is to try to influence the various faith leaders to pick this up as a challenge and to do it more than once. Most faith leaders once in a while talk about development, but as a continuing commitment, it is rare, and I think if we go forth from tonight was that possibility, I think we would have achieved a lot. MS. Cast : Thank you. I think this question in a way follows on that. It's a little lengthy, but let me read it all. You spoke of the two-thirds of the world's population living in absolute poverty, indeed a crisis of faith and morality, the greatest challenge and struggle of our time. As evidenced by the call for Jubilee debt relief by many religious communities around the world, can you speak of ways that the World Bank is seeking to lift people out of poverty creatively, compassionately, humanely, other than loans and causing greater debt? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Yes, I can. The first thing-- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: The first thing that we did was to start an initiative called the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative to relieve-- MS. Cast : I didn't-- MR. WOLFENSOHN: It's called the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative. It's an initiative which is to forgive debt, and we succeeded in getting an amount of $51 billion that has been forgiven or is in the course of being forgiven for developing countries. But the real issue on the debt issue comes in two ways. The first is that for all too many countries the debt burden is great, but to forgive the debt it's necessary to get the rich countries to agree to forgive it. Institutions like my own are severely limited on what we can forgive because we don't actually own all the money. An institution like the Bank--I remember responding to a faith leader about the request that we should forgive all the loans of the World Bank. And I said, "Well, I'm very happy to do that, but do you understand that your church has just bought $50 million of World Bank bonds?" [Laughter.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: "And if we forgive the debt, we cannot repay you the bonds because we have only $30 billion of capital and we borrow the $120 billion in the market." So for intermediary institutions like the Bank, we could forgive $30 billion and give back all the capital that we have, and then we would be out of business, which for many people probably wouldn't matter, but the limit to what an institution like ours can do is the limit of our capital because we borrow the rest of the money in the market. That's for the Bank. And we have already forgiven close to $4 billion in our capital, and are continuing to press for debt relief. There's another institution called IDA which we run, which has $110 billion of loans to developing countries. And that money is funded by donations from rich countries. And we could forgive all of that--except that the rich countries are counting on repayment of that money over a period of 30 years in order to re-lend it on to other countries. So the way it works is that this money is loaned at no interest for 30 years. It starts to come back, and we have roughly $2 to $3 billion a year coming back. And if we were to forgive the whole of the debt, which I'd be quite happy to do, we would not then get the $3 billion a year coming back. And since we're only given $3 billion of new money, we'd only be able to lend $3 billion because we don't have the money being repaid. The essence of debt relief, I'm afraid, comes down to the same question as the availability of new loans. Will countries like the United States or Germany or France or the United Kingdom or those countries that are rich be prepared to make up the money that is not repaid in the form of either grants or new loans? If they're not, we can certainly forgive the old debt, but we can then only lend half the money of that we are now lending. Now, I should add one other thing: that of the $7 billion that we're now doing in IDA, loans to the poorest countries, which are done for 30 years at no interest, we're now doing a billion and a half a year in terms of grants, which don't have to be repaid at all. And that, frankly, is a result of an initiative by the United States to say let's grant a billion and a half of the monies. But the worry that other countries now have is that if you make those grants, then nothing will come back later and, therefore, it will reduce later the amount of money that can be loaned. So the answer on debt relief is not as simple as it looks, but it all comes back to the national will for the forgiveness of debt. And the final thing I'd say on that is that political will can make a big difference. In the case of Iraq, where there is $120 billion of outstanding debt, the United States has got behind an effort to have at least two-thirds of that forgiven. And so it is likely that $80 billion worth of that debt will be forgiven. If that happens, it will assuredly bring about greater pressure from all other countries to have their debt forgiven, given that the totality of what has been forgiven under HIPC is $50 billion. And so people will say, Do you have to be invaded in order to have debt relief? And this is a problem which is, I think, coming up. But I'd like people to understand that the money that the Bank has loaned is not the Bank's money. It's money which we borrow in the marketplace. And, quite sadly, we're obligated to pay back five-sixths of that money because only one-sixth is the capital of the Bank. So it gets back, I regret to say, not to my wish. It gets back, again, to the question of what is the willingness of the countries that own us--and 184 countries own us--to allow debt relief. MS. Cast : Let me follow up. If there is pressure following whatever happens to Iraq's debts from other countries, is there any advice you would give to people of faith in this room as to how to capitalize on that politically, how to move ahead with their agenda for further debt relief? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, there has been a huge, as you know, Jubilee Campaign. I should just tell you a little anecdote. Before the Jubilee Campaign, I actually started this HIPC debt relief program. It was the first time anyone had addressed the question of institutional debt of the poorer countries. The first time. And for two weeks, amongst groups that are antagonistic now, I was a hero for two weeks. In fact, they gave me a big party and they gave me champagne, and they said this is a great breakthrough. And I remember saying to them at the time, I wish you'd remember this because two weeks from now you're going to be coming and saying it's not enough and that we're tight-fisted and so on. Well, that's exactly what happened. And we had a short-lived moment of glory by addressing this question--over a lot of criticism, I might say. The thing that needs to be understood is that people need to understand the linkage of three things: debt relief, trade, and increased aid. And they all get to the same question: To what extent are the rich countries prepared to give up either their markets or their assets for the benefit of poorer countries? And it is the same issue. And if I could get that understood and if faith leaders could get it more broadly understood, I think it might be more effective, because I think a simple call for debt relief without relating it to aid and without relating it to trade is probably not going to get very far. MS. Cast : This is a question from Peter Fargo at Georgetown University. I assume he's a student. And he asks: Will the World Bank provide an office for faith-based development and a grant program for work done outside the World Bank? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, that is a wonderful question. The answer is no, there will not be a grant program specifically for faith-based development institutions. And the reason for that, I might tell you, is because our Board, including the United States, and other members of the Board, have vigorously opposed the mixing of faith and the work that we do. They say that the faith-based organizations--it's the old story of church and state. You don't want to mix the running of the country with any sort of infection from the faiths. That was the reason that we did the World Faiths Development Dialogue, and separately funded through external fundraising, the Office of WFDD, which now is in Birmingham, UK, and where we are undertaking work along the lines of the type that the questioner would like. So we're doing a lot of these programs, but it's being done outside the ambit of the Bank officially, except that in the instance of issues like AIDS, where we've loaned over a billion dollars,(much of it now grants) and --at least half the money is going to NGOs, and a significant amount of that is now going to faith-based NGOs. So the funding is going through the governments, but the distribution agent in the case of AIDS and increasingly in health is faith-based organizations. So I would love to have a faith-based organization in the place, but I'm a voice of one, maybe two, and the reason is that the national governments do not give homes to faith-based organizations typically in their own administrative setups, and they're just not prepared to let us do it. What we can do is to reach out. My colleague Enrique Iglesias at the Inter-American Development Bank has a whole program going on, but it is an Interamerican Bank employee who is running it. We're doing it at some level and as part of broader programs. The International Labor Organization is doing it and have on staff a priest who is working on such activities. But the simple answer is that the Board would not agree to it. MS. Cast : A question from a student: How do you respond to the argument that the World Bank is not democratic? MR. WOLFENSOHN: By saying that-- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: It is not democratic in terms of one country, one vote. And it goes back to the history of the institution. The institution was started after World War II as a reconstruction institution and the capital was subscribed by rich countries. And they then decided, under John Maynard Keynes, that they would treat it like a private company and that the votes in that company would be in proportion to the percentage of the capital that was subscribed, like a normal corporation. Since that time, the rich countries have reduced their interests, but the G-8, the richest countries in the world, still control of the order of 50 percent of the votes of the Bank. And 140 countries have maybe 30 percent of the votes of the Bank. So we have asked the countries to look at the question of changing the structure. We in management have given them many suggestions, but, again, it gets back to the Ministers. Now, we do have a Minister from South Africa, who is in charge of the Development Committee of the Bank, who is currently seeking to poll the shareholders to see if there will be changes that they could bring about. The first change they've brought about is a willingness to strengthen the capacities of the developing countries so that they can present themselves and their issues better. They're giving them a better voice. But I have to say to you that I do not think in my immediate lifetime I'm likely to see significant changes in the voting pattern. But I do think it will be opened up in the next one to two years. This is an issue for our shareholders, and, again, if you think it should be changed, you can take action through the political process. There may be action if there is an outcry today about a greater form of democracy both in terms of voting in the institution and in the selection of leadership in the institutions. And I think that will play out over the coming years, but I don't think it will be tomorrow. MS. Cast : Another challenge: Has the World Bank published any statistics of the percent or number of projects that actually achieve their development objectives? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Yes, we have, and we monitor them rather carefully, and it's running around 70 percent clear success at the moment. But we measure results strictly against the development objectives that were articulated in the original program design. That does not mean that the projects we list as unsuccessful have not been worthwhile or they have not been useful. What it means is they have not met the objective for which they were passed by the Board. And at around 70 percent successful, I think the Bank is probably top of the league tables at the moment in terms of effectiveness of what we're doing. This is a very tough business. We are called upon to lend to the toughest cases. If the commercial community won't lend or give, then it comes to us. And it's quite tough to do projects in some countries where you would prefer not to lend seen strictly from a commercial point of view but where you have a duty to go and where you know that there is inadequate strength in governance and inadequate strength very often morally. And this was particularly true in the '80s when many of the projects which are coming home to roost were done on the basis not of development criteria but on the basis of political criteria. I remind you that that was the time in the Cold War, money was flowing to countries because of the battle that was going on between capitalism and communism. And, sadly, we still have the vestiges of that, and we still have leaders around who were used to getting money because of politics. And it takes a little while to change, but I think change is coming, and we have to do everything we can to bring it along. MS. Cast : Someone asks, Can the less developed countries be expected to compete effectively in a global free trade system? Is free trade really fair? Can it really promote development? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, I personally think- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: I personally think that it can. The interesting thing, of course, is that people in our country complain about free trade also, as you may have noticed, and so that it is not just an issue for poor countries. It is a global question of commitment to free trade. When I talk about 300 billion dollars or more in agricultural subsidies, that is not agricultural subsidies in poor countries. That's agricultural subsidies in rich countries. And so the issue of free trade is a matter of commitment and of economic practice and theory. My own experience has been that it is better to have a global market into which developing countries can enter slowly and with protection and be allowed the opportunity of training and support so that they can participate in greater markets. Literally, last week, I was in West Africa talking to 15 Presidents of African states. The highest tariffs in Africa are between the states, between the African states. They're not between the African states and Europe or the United States. But the highest tariffs are there, and it was clear amongst the leadership that one of the first advances that could be made was establishing a West African free trade area. But most of them were concerned and anxious that they give them access to U.S. markets and the European markets because their own markets are too small. But, clearly, their immediate entry into it is going to be disadvantageous because they don't have the experience, they don't have the technology, they don't have the marketing skills in many cases. And so they need time to work through what are the areas in which they can be competitive. But all our evidence suggests that building walls around a country does not help the country. What you need to do is to have a measured approach to entry into the global markets, and that if you do that, you have a real chance of improving the lives of people in those countries. Of course, there are many admirable examples, many of them in East Asia, and a huge one today in terms of China, which, after all, is one-fifth of the world and which today is 4 percent of global trade, and with the United States 13 percent, but by the year 2017 it will be the same, 12 percent each. So certainly China is a country in which there are a lot of poor people and they've taken 300 million people out of poverty in the last 25 years. But that is a country which is demonstrating that it is possible to compete on a global scale. And some of the cries in this country at the moment are about China. And, indeed, it's one of the key issues. MS. Cast : This question, I think, follows in the same vein, but adds a philosophical layer to it. How can free market capitalism and spirituality work to liberate the people of this world? One is inherently selfish. I presume a reference to capitalism. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, first of all, I think people should be allowed to choose what system they want to live under. I'm very much against going with a patented solution to every country. And one of the other things that I have been vigorous about, in addition to this issue we're discussing tonight, was the importance of looking and preserving culture in the countries in which you operate so that people can have the culture that they want. Less than five days ago, my wife and I were in Ghana, and we visited the Ashanti tribe and visited the Asantahini (ph), the leader of the Ashanti Tribe, which is 8 million people. And we were received with the music of horns, interestingly horns like we heard tonight, and drums, a system of absolute beauty in terms of tribal customs. And we're working with the Ashantis to help them build the sort of society that they want. And the leader of the Ashantis is anxious to ensure that the rural community develops as he wants, but he wants to bring in also some industry and he wants to bring in computers and he wants to bring in modern education for his people. And this is not something which we're imposing. This is a decision which the tribal leadership has decided it wants to do, and I think that is the way that it should be done. I don't think we should go to countries and insist that they should follow one political framework or one economic framework if they want to follow another. I remember when I first went to Vietnam and met the Secretary General of the Communist Party, and we were talking about the programs of the Bank. He was particularly distant because he thought I was going to try something on him, and he told me that he had actually led the Vietnamese in the war against the Americans and that he didn't think that the Americans could teach him very much because he thought he'd won the war. And I guess he had in some ways. And he was determined that in their introduction to capitalism or free market activities, he was going to do it in a phased way, that he was going to work his way into it, that he was not going to liberate or liberalize his capital markets, that he was not going to privatize his companies, and that he was going to do it at his own pace and his own time. And I said, "Great, go ahead. We'll see how we can help you." If I'd come in with a solution which said you've got to do it immediately and I want it done by next week or you get no money, it wouldn't have been effective. He wouldn't have done it, and Vietnam wouldn't have had the support that it has. But seven years later, Vietnam is now competing in the market at the pace Vietnam wanted to do it. And I think that is possible within a free market system. I don't think you come in and insist to everybody that they do everything exactly the way you would do it if you lived in the United States or Australia or somewhere else. MS. Cast : Let's take it one step further with this question: What are practical ways to engage religious mobilization in social justice? How can development projects foster a culture of respect, engagement, and interdependence? MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, that's something that we are literally trying to do, and what I have learned is that it's not just convincing the religious leaders at the center any more than my conviction on something immediately convinces all the people in the World Bank that what I've suggested is right. Changing a culture takes a lot of time. It's taken me a lot of time in the World Bank and quite a lot of bruises. And so if you're trying to get religious cooperation on the ground, if you're trying to get people to work on development projects with other religions and with international institutions, it requires a lot of patience and a lot of training. And I'm fumbling here because I've got a list of 15 of these initiatives which we have highlighted as inspirational examples of what is happening. One in--well, I'll just give you a few, but the sort of things that are being done as exemplary partnerships. One is the AVINAFoundation and the Jesuit community in Latin America working in the school system. Another one is the program by the Aga Khan Foundation that supports early childhood education in madrassas to try and make the system more up-to-date. This is their decision, not mine. Community-led development in Colombia working with faith institutions and many programs inspired by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a remarkable Catholic organization for example in Albania and in the Balkans. In Sri Lanka, we are working with groups put together by religious leaders. In northern Uganda, Catholics, Anglicans, and Muslims. In the Philippines, a group put together by Christians and Muslims, and in Argentina an inspirational Jewish group working on job issues with support from the Interamerican Bank. It's amazing what can happen if you can get to the ground level and you can convince the leaders on the ground. But if you have someone in Rome or if you have someone in Canterbury or you have someone wherever the leaders are and it doesn't get down to the field, you do not get the results. It's wonderful to have the summit meetings, but what is needed is five to seven years of hard work out in the field with examples happening. And that is the way that you can get it done. The thing I have learned is that you don't bring about change, social change or change in direction, by edict. You can come out with the direction, but what needs to be done is meticulous follow-up and to be relentlessly boring in repeating what you want to get done for a long time. And so all I can suggest is that religious leaders do what they're quite often good at doing, as I remember listening to sermons, is to be relentlessly boring on this subject, and we'll get them--we'll bring about change. So perhaps that's a suggestion to all the leaders that are here today. MS. Cast : We have just a few minutes left, and I want to plow through a couple of questions quickly. One, Mr. Wolfensohn, what do you have to say about the 19,000 people a day dying due to global economic policies the World Bank and IMF advocate and sometimes initiate, according to a UNICEF study? And there's more about structural adjustment. I presume you're aware of the study they're talking about. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, I'm actually surprised that UNICEF would say that it's because of the World Bank and the IMF, but if they do say it, I think it's wrong. It's very easy to put the Bank and the Fund in a box. It's very easy for people that are here, some young people, or even older people, to simply say that the problems of the world are because of an evil one, and that evil one happens to be the World Bank and the Monetary Fund. I have the pleasure of working with the World Bank, and I have 11,000 people working with me. They come from 140 different countries. They're remarkable people. They get up every day not thinking how they can ruin the lives of people. They get up every day thinking about how they can improve the world. This is not a vicious group of people. This is a group of people that are committing their lives to change--perhaps significantly more than many of the hecklers that you hear. And these are people-- [Applause.] MR. WOLFENSOHN: And these are people that, in my judgment, cede no moral authority to anyone. The problem is that when you have the hecklers who come with a one-line intervention, they immediately assume, very often without knowledge, that they're in the moral high ground and because others will cheer with them that they're right. Well, if they think they're right, then let them do something about it and not heckle. Let them go out and work. In this community, I don't just talk about what we should do. I talked about the Anacostia River. I've been out on--what is it called?--Kendall Island or Jackson Island -- for a day trying to clean it up. Every year I go and paint a house, not just finance it but go paint a house with colleagues, Christmas in April I think it's called. I challenge some of the critics to indicate that they do these things, too. But what I do is trivial compared to my colleagues, who spend their lives in these areas trying to improve the conditions of others. So I get pretty fed up when I hear the criticisms of people that have no idea what we're doing and who themselves do nothing. MS. Cast : Let me squeeze in one more question-- [Applause.] MS. : How does the World Bank make women's work more visible in developed countries? MR. WOLFENSOHN: In developed countries. MS. : It says "developed." I'm not sure if the questioner means "developed." MR. WOLFENSOHN: Well, we celebrated today International Women's Day, even though it's not International Women's Day; it's in March. But it's not--it's the 8th of March. It's not today. Because every year we celebrate it and we have the month in which we do it, and today was my opportunity to do that. And I think that you have to do it in your own way in your own organization. What we've done is to increase the visibility of women in the organization, to increase the recognition of women in the organization, to increase the intake of women in the organization, and to give them leadership positions not because of their sex but because they're good. And I find that that's a pretty good way to increase the visibility of women in an organization. We have an African woman who is a Managing Director, Mamphela Ramphele, one of four. We have ten Vice Presidents. We've just appointed as the head of our insurance company a Japanese woman. And, frankly, we're sort of color-blind and gender-blind. I can tell you, when I was in Ghana just now and I was having dinner with the Prime Minister, it suddenly occurred to me that one of my three assistants was an African from Ghana and is a Ph.D. graduate who was one of the three people that worked with me, and I had one of my three personal secretaries is a Ghanaian woman. And I hadn't thought of it until I was sitting next to him that I had two Ghanaians working right next to me. And I think that we now feel in the Bank that you just don't--I mean, it would be improper for me to say that I don't notice women sometimes. In this church, I would be struck down if I said that. But I have to say that professionally in the organization, I believe we're approaching a position where sex and color doesn't matter. And I think if more people could do that, that would solve your problem of recognition of women in developed countries. MS. Cast : Unfortunately, we have to bring this evening to a close. We have more questions, but no more time. [Applause.] MS. : Thank you, Dr. Wolfensohn, for your insights. MR. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you. [Applause.] MS. : To close out our evening, the Executive Director of the Interfaith Conference, Reverend Clark Lobenstein, and its President, Dr. Carol Miller. REV. LOBENSTEIN: Thank you very much. Please note that in closing here, you have the opportunity, first of all, if you have not yet gotten your scholarship application form, which you need to apply for the three $1,000 scholarships, that you will do that at the table in the main hall. And there's also a book store there for the Potter's House, which three books: "The Millennium Challenges for Faith and Development"; "Faith in Conservation," whose author Martin Palmer is with us tonight from England; and "Faith in Development: A Partnership between the World Bank and the Churches of Africa." So those and other books are available. Please remain with us for the closing prayer by our President, Dr. Carol Miller, and remember to take back to the box your evaluation forms and your commitment cards so we can continue this work together. Carol, please, let us pray. [Closing prayer.l   |
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