December 29, 2003 — World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn has called for the international development community to recommit to fighting poverty and meeting the Millennium Development Goals in 2004.

Mr Wolfensohn, in assessing 2003 and outlining the challenges for the coming year, said that while the focus of the world had been on major crises in the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia during 2003, poverty remained a major underlying factor in the world's problems.

The World Bank's Global Economic Prospects 2004, released earlier this year, estimated that about 1.1 billion people were living on less than $1 a day and about 2.7 billion people continued to live on less than $2 a day.

"For us at this institution, we're trying to remind the world that the real issues that we have to confront, which is at the base of so much that has happened, is the conquest of poverty," he said.

"We believe that in fighting poverty, we are doing the best work that can be done to achieve stability and to achieve peace," Mr Wolfensohn said.

Next May, the World Bank will be co-sponsoring with the Chinese Government a major conference in Shanghai on how to reduce poverty. Among the focuses of the conference will be how to replicate successful poverty reduction programs to produce the widest possible benefits.

Mr Wolfensohn's comments echoed his speech at the World Bank's annual meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in September, where he said the world was "out of balance".

"In our world of 6 billion people, one billion own 80 percent of global GDP (gross domestic product), while another billion struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day," he told the annual meeting.

He called for action to increase aid levels - which have fallen from 0.5 percent of GDP in the 1960s to about 0.22 percent today - and for developing and rich countries to take action to reduce poverty.

In his end of year message to staff and the Bank's partners in the international development community, Mr Wolfensohn said 2003 had been a very difficult year, marked by conflict and the continued growth of HIV/AIDS "in too many countries".

Recently released figures from UNAIDS estimated that as many as 5 million new HIV infections occurred in the past 12 months and that the epidemic claimed 3 million lives in the same period. UNAIDS estimates that about 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS.

To view Mr. Wolfensohn's video message:
A Look Back at 2003 (RealVideo)

World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn with a Development Marketplace winner.