WORLD BANK ANNUAL MEETINGS  SOUTH-SOUTH INITIATIVE LAUNCH   P R O C E E D I N G S  MRS. OKONJO-IWEALA: Good afternoon, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.             I am very excited this afternoon to open this first official launch for the new South-South Experience Exchange Facility.              Allow me to welcome Mr. Zoellick, the President of the World Bank, His Excellency Minister Carstens, Chair of the Development Committee and Minister of Finance Mexico; Her Excellency Ulla Toernaes, Minister of Development Cooperation of Denmark; His Excellency Bert Koenders, Minister for Development Cooperation of The Netherlands; Ms. Maria Jesus Fernandez, Director-General for International Finance of the Ministry of Finance of Spain; His Excellency Mr. Yong Li, Vice Minister of Finance of China; Ms. Nemat Shafik, the Permanent Secretary for DFID of the United Kingdom, and Mr. Dhenandra Kumar, Executive Director for India, representing His Excellency, Minister Chidambaram.  Thank you all. We are very grateful for your sponsoring of this Initiative.            Let me welcome all the other dignitaries in this room and all the colleagues from the World Bank.            Before I give the floor to President Zoellick, let me tell you that the South-South Experience Exchange is an exciting initiative that will help policymakers and practitioners in low-income countries who face serious problems and cannot afford the luxury of long lead times to receive support to benefit from the first-hand experience of their counterparts in other developing countries who have done well in one area or the other of development, either at the policy level or at the practical level. It will also help individuals and groups of farmers and other beneficiaries in our countries to exchange with each other their experience.            Countries learn best by seeing how others who have tackled similar issues have done it, and that is the spirit of this South-South Initiative. Right from the start, it received the strong support of Bob Zoellick, who thinks that this is the kind of instrument that we need to develop to make sure that we get the experience from one country to the other through the medium of the World Bank and sometimes directly from one country to the next.            For example, when I was in Nigeria and faced the necessity of looking for who would help us for pension reform, we turned to the World Bank and they were able to connect us with Chile to learn their experience with pension reforms. This was very instrumental in helping us make our own reforms at that time.            I am proud to say that today we have not only been able to launch this Facility but to also say that we have practical experience already ongoing under the Facility. The demand is huge. We have about 10 requests pending from all countries. And we are looking forward to documenting and again disseminating this experience in an exchange library.            The work behind this pilot could not have taken place without the strong input of many colleagues. I won't name all of them, but I think it would be remiss if we didn't mention Simon Bell, Michael Wong, Ms. Chen, David Cotton, Helena Nkole, Olga Sulla, Karen Brooks, Rick Scobie and so many others who have been involved.            We are delighted that today we also have with us two of the practitioners who are participating in the exchange between Tanzania and India, and we will later be hearing from the two of them.            So I want to thank you very much for joining us today. Now let me hand over to President Zoellick.  World Bank President, Robert B. Zoellick:            MR. ZOELLICK: Thank you very much, Ngozi.            I am delighted to join you today in welcome our distinguished guests to the World Bank for the launch of the new South-South Experience Exchange Facility. Let me have a special testament to the vision and drive of Ngozi, without whom none of this would have happened. This is really a project that she made happen. As she said, I thought it was an excellent idea, but it came from her, and she's the one who has brought it to this point and I'm sure will keep pushing it forward.            I want to extend a special welcome today to the Ministers from China, Denmark, Mexico, The Netherlands, Spain, the Permanent Secretary from DFID in the UK, the Executive Director from India. It's quite a powerhouse. We have both intellectual and policy power here. When I came in, I was pretty struck.  All of them have pledged financial support to this Facility. Many others of you in this room I understand have expressed strong interest, so we'll have a collection box on the way out.            This is just a wonderful new example of the type of convening power that we want to try to pull together at the Bank to bring together both traditional and new donors to support initiatives.            We are all here because we have a common view, and that is that knowledge is the key to development. That's the principle behind this South-South Facility, that by sharing knowledge and learning from each other's experience, we can advance the development agenda. The World Bank Group can play an important role in facilitating this process not only by sharing our own knowledge but also the expertise of emerging economies with our clients in developing countries. Policymakers in developing countries are recognizing that it is often to relate to and therefore to learn from others have had similar circumstances in policies in emerging economies.            So this South-South Facility will be an effective instrument for helping countries speak the same language and share this first-hand knowledge.            Now, there is an enormous potential for sharing expertise, but I just want to mention a few important areas:            Managing commodity windfalls; how do developing countries manage commodity windfalls--that can have significant long-term implications for their growth and for economic diversification? So, how can countries as diverse as Chile, Kuwait, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan learn from each other in this area--or from the past mistakes of their own or of other countries?            What are the systems and institutions that are needed, and what are the pitfalls and political economy challenges?            Technology transfer--developing countries can assist each other with innovation as well as the adaptation of new technologies. India and China, for example, can transfer the skills, technologies and the human resources training that they have acquired in the course of their own development. Of particular value will be the technical and vocational training and entrepreneurship development in small-scale industries that are critical for creating jobs and accelerating growth.            Egypt's experience and knowledge in new irrigation technologies could be of enormous value to African countries which have a similar type of arid land. As many of you may know, African agriculture is primarily rainfed--under 5 percent is irrigated--so we can make a huge boost in productivity and production if we can bring more irrigation and more seed varieties in. And that's the best way to try to deal with the problems of hunger and high food prices. So this type of technology transfer could help us boost agricultural production as well as to help with water management.            There is a lot more knowledge to share--for example, in the areas of social safety nets targeting the poor, where Brazil has had significant experience; developing a rural credit network, where Bangladesh has been very effective; conditional cash transfers, where Mexico's experience is being widely shared and replicated, including in New York City; and a host of areas, such as developing efficient tax systems, public investment selection, pension reform, trade integration, and many others.            Many countries have already established long-term South-South technical cooperation, and others are looking to do so. But we can see some gaps in the way this cooperation often occurs and that is one of the things that this new South-South Facility can help fill.            There is, for example, a clear niche in the area of shorter-term, just-in-time knowledge transfer, the type of issue that Ngozi mentioned, that requires interaction for just a few weeks. Currently, such transfer occurs in a very ad hoc manner when the opportunity arises.            It also can take a long time to put the mechanisms in place for sharing information. The elapsed time between a partner country's request for access to relevant developing country experience and the time that they actually receive it can be six months to a year. If you have a government that's in power for three or four years, that can chew up a huge amount of time. So policymakers, frankly, cannot afford such long lead times.            Furthermore, there is no repository for such knowledge exchanges--no recording of the event or monitoring its impact--so this just happens to be a series of on-offs again and again.            This new Facility will try to address these needs. It will need to be demand-driven and flexible to serve policymakers and practitioners by providing a response to immediate needs. At the same time, we hope it can play a catalytic role for longer-term technical cooperation. It has to be simple and low-cost to administer and address needs across all sectors and regions. And the Facility will build both a web-based library of exchanges of all South-South-related activities and research, as well as a roster of countries, South-South experts and policymakers with experience on varied subjects.            So it is with very great pleasure that I formally announce today the launch of the South-South Experience Exchange Facility.            [Applause.]            MR. ZOELLICK: And now I want to call on two distinguished guests to speak to us about their own experience in exchanging knowledge, the first exchange that has been financed under the new Facility.            Dr. Mmari is the Chairman of Tanzania's Farmers' Association, and Dr. Vyas is the Managing Director of AMUL, an India dairy cooperative. Together, they are working to bring India's dairy revolution to Africa.            India has had a very unique dairy program, properly known as "Operation Flood," that transformed a chronically milk-deficient India into the largest producer of milk and milk products in the world. At the request of the Government in Tanzania and the Tanzanian dairy farmers, the World Bank Staff arranged a connection from South Asia and Africa and had the two regions work together to organize this exchange, so that Tanzania and other countries could benefit from India's experience. Some of those Bank staff are here with us today. I want to thank all of you for your work, and I want to welcome the two doctors to start us off with a concrete example of the exchange that is already benefiting poor rural farmers.  Thank you.            [Applause.]            MR. VYAS:  Good afternoon to all, President of the World Bank, Managing Director of the World Bank, Ministers from India, China, Denmark, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Permanent Secretary of DFID, Dr. Mmari of Tanzania, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen.  It is my pleasure to represent 2.7 million milk producers from the Province of Gujarat State in India on this occasion of the launch of the South-South Exchange Facility, an initiative led by the Managing Director of the World Bank along with Vice Presidents of Asia and Africa.            The AMUL model has been instrumental in bringing about a "white revolution" in India, and the model has demonstrated over a period of four decades the benefits as follows. The AMUL model was implemented with the value of national ownership in development. The Government of India consistently supported the program for about 25 years irrespective of which party was in power; the beneficiary effects of higher income in relieving the worst aspects of poverty; the capacity to create jobs not only in the fields of animal husbandry and dairy, but also in other affiliated areas; the importance of a commercial approach to development; the importance of getting government out of commercial enterprise; the importance of market failure in agriculture; and the power and the problem of participatory organizations and the importance of a policy.  Some of the achievements of the AMUL model in the last four decades are summarized as follows: The phenomenal growth of milk production in India from 20 million metric tons to 100 million metric tons in a span of just 40 years.  This has been made possible only because of the dairy cooperative movement, the replicas of the AMUL model, which took place for 25 years all over the country, and this has enabled India to emerge as the largest milk-producing country in the world.            The dairy cooperative movement has also encouraged Indian dairy farmers to keep more animals, which has resulted in a population of 5 million cattle and buffalo in the country, the largest in the world.            The dairy cooperative movement has garnered a large base of milk producers with a membership--today boasting--of over 11 million farmer families.            The dairy cooperative movement has also spread across the length and breadth of the country, over 100,000 villages, with 180 districts of India in 22 States.            The movement has also been instrumental in bridging the social divide of caste, creed, race, religion, and languages in villages, by offering open and voluntary membership.            The dairy cooperative has helped remove the poor farmers of India from the cycles of agents and middlemen and has provided an actual market for the produce, and as these are run by the farmers themselves, it has also resulted in fair returns to the members for their produce.            The dairy cooperative has been able to produce a market perception of honesty and transparency with clean management.            And one more benefit is that at the end of the program, most of the States in India have a very vibrant dairy industry, and every State has been able to build a brand for the respective State, and ownership of the brand rests with the farmer. AMUL is a brand owned by 2.7 million farmers over Gujarat State, and like that, the farmers of the brands Kolverka [ph.], Vijaya, Sudha, Aavin, Nandini--all these brands are owned by the farmers, and that is the true identity.            AMUL has evolved over a period of the last six decades with development systems and processes over the entire value chain of the dairy industry and has been able to develop expertise in the respective fields.  Therefore, AMUL may be able to share with other African countries its expertise in the following areas. The first is to organize farmers into a cooperative, to bring them together and create their own cooperative. Second is to create a milk collection system at the village level. Third is to create milk-processing facilities with the latest technology at a given level, and then build a nationwide marketing network with emphasis on brand-building.            Apart from the other services like production management programs, animal health programs, cattle feed manufacturing programs, all of the experiences which we have, we can share with these people.            We sincerely value and acknowledge the support that we received in our initial developmental years from the World Bank, the European Community, and several other international institutions which have helped us to reach the stage where we are today. Hence, we believe that it is our time to reciprocate with whatever resources we have to those who can benefit from us, and it is with this spirit that we believe we can make the difference for our friends in Africa.            Thank you.            [Applause.]                                   MR. MMARI: Honorable President of the World Bank, Honorable Ministers of India, China, Denmark, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, the Permanent Secretary of DFID, Mr. Vyas from AMUL-India, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen.            I am grateful today to represent 2 million families who keep cattle in Tanzania. My visit to India's Gujarat State, Anand, AMUL, was an eye-opener to me. Let me just describe the situation at the grassroots in Tanzania.            Poverty in rural areas is a phenomenon brought about by lack of money circulation. Most villages have seasonal crops which they sell and get money. When they purchase their needs, such as soap, kerosene, medicine, et cetera, all the money goes back to the city. During that time, there is no money circulating in the village, and the villages prepare local brew and they lose themselves in their dance. This takes them to the next season, year-in, year-out.            What these people really need is a crop they can produce very day, sell every day, and get money every day. In that way, there will be cash circulating in the village. It is for this reason why understanding increased milk production and consumption is very important.            In Tanzania, per capita milk consumption is low--less than 70 grams per day per person. Less than 2 percent of marketed milk is processed by the formal sector. About 20 to 40 percent of milk produced is wasted due to spoilage via various reasons.            Studies show that Tanzania is a milk-deficient area in spite of the opportunity available, and milk from local breed, which produces between 1.5 liter to 2 liters per cow per day, is not targeted as collectable milk. India is targeted.            The effect of low milk collection, processing and consumption deprives the 2 million households in Tanzania who keep cattle from an income, therefore perpetuating poverty.            Our visit to India made us realize the following--that a lot can be achieved by dedication. We have noted the spirit of Dr. Kurien. That spirit spread from the State of Gujarat to all India, and as we sit here today, it is crossing the Indian Ocean and coming to Africa.            We also learned that we can get a lot of milk from either a few high-yielding exotic dairy cows or from a lot of local cows that produce small quantities of milk--the example of India.            We learned that the crop residue can be mobilized to become a feed resource for the cows and that villages can be organized into group business ventures.            We learned that poverty can greatly be reduced by dairy, and if this is successful, which I believe it will be, the sector will provide families with income throughout the year, create jobs throughout the chain from the village farms to the cities, improve the nutritional status of the population, reduce the number of malnourished children--the list goes on and on.            We are confident that the Anand model will work in Tanzania because there are so many similarities. We are confident that investments in the dairy sector will not only enable Tanzania to achieve a national strategy for growth and reduction of poverty but will also achieve the global eight Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015.            Thank you so much, Mr. President, Honorable Ministers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.            Thank you.            MRS. OKONJO-IWEALA:  Thank you to Dr. Mmari and Dr. Vyas for those wonderful testimonies of the power of the exchange.            This is a short ceremony, so I would now like to call on His Excellency Agustin Carstens, Chair of the Development Committee, to close the session for us with a few remarks. And thank you for taking the time in a busy schedule.            MR. CARSTENS: Good afternoon, President Zoellick, Managing Director Ngozi, fellow Ministers, ladies and gentlemen.            It has been an honor for me to join you today in the launch of the South-South Experience Exchange Facility, a multi-donor trust fund to allow the exchange of fresh and innovative experiences among developing countries in a faster and more flexible manner. Actually, it has been excellent just to have heard the two examples presented to us to see how this exchange can work.            We very much welcome this initiative which, under the leadership of President Zoellick and Managing Director Ngozi, will multiply dearly-needed South-South cooperation projects.            During my years as a government official, thanks to my intensive engagement with the IFIs, I have realized that countries have much to share with peers facing similar challenges. Mexico in particular has provided technical assistance to Latin American and Caribbean countries on public health, agriculture, basic education and environmental protection, as well as on customs, tax administration and some other macroeconomic and financial issues.            We are convinced that this new Facility represents a great contribution for an adequate and timely provision of resources, experiences, and know-how among developing countries. This initiative permits us to take advantage of the invaluable asset base created by the dynamic nature of policy formulation and implementation in different countries which to date has not been sufficiently exploited. The initiative indeed will work as a pool of experiences from which all the participants will benefit.            One of the South-South cooperation's virtues is that there should be a better understanding of the demands of the recipient countries given by idiosyncratic and common features as well as the experience of an approach of collaboration and mutual understanding. This initiative will also prevent, through coordination, duplication among different efforts and create a repository of knowledge.            The World Bank with its various instruments, experience and understanding of the countries' needs is in a privileged position to be a broker, matching supply of and demand for practical knowledge. Besides its role as an interface for developing countries, the Bank is also in a unique position to increase convergence of these efforts with North-South cooperation aimed at the same goals--poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals within a framework of sustainable development.            Mexico is eager to participate in this initiative, certain that all those participants who have put in place successful strategies will be keen to share them with those countries facing similar problems, without forgetting that we also need to learn from failures, potential pitfalls, and avoid tripping over the same stone.  While we recognize and appreciate the solidarity and partnership from developed countries, the current scenario shows that South-South cooperation will be increasingly relevant. The Experience Exchange Facility, which is an inclusive initiative of experiences and contributions of developed and developing countries, marks the beginning of a new and promising modality of cooperation.  Congratulations, and thank you very much. [Applause.]  MRS. OKONJO-IWEALA: Thank you, Minister Carstens.  This marks the end of the launch. Thank you, everybody for attending. I think there is a quick photo op for the Ministers and the supporters of the initiative, if you have one minute.  Thank you.  [Meeting concluded.]      |
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