New World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz Takes Office

			> Interview: Paul Wolfowitz   World Bank President
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Contact:
Print: Damian Milverton (202) 473-6735
Dmilverton@worldbank.org
Broadcast: Carl Hanlon (202) 473-8087
chanlon@worldbank.org

Wolfowitz, who today began his duties as the tenth president of the World Bank in its 61-year history, said there are promising signs that some African countries are growing strongly enough to reduce poverty, but that there are still enormous challenges preventing much of the continent delivering real gains in poverty reduction.

“There's a long, long way to go but I would find nothing more satisfying than, at the end of my tenure at this institution, to feel that we have played a part in what hopefully could be a period when Africa went from being a continent of despair, to a continent of hope,” Wolfowitz said.

Other regions are no less important, the new Bank President noted, and he said he will be focusing on ways to ensure the Bank continues to work with governments throughout all regions to provide the resources and technical help they need to deliver better lives to their poorest people.

Wolfowitz paid tribute to Wolfensohn's ten years of leadership, in particular for focusing the Bank on fighting corruption, promoting gender equality, and ensuring developing countries are “in the driver's seat” in efforts to reduce poverty. These issues, he said, and the need for the Bank to play a leading role in coordinating donor support in developing countries, will be among the highest priorities on the new President's agenda.

“I want to focus as much as I can on what I would call real-world priorities,” Wolfowitz said, adding that no “organizational makeover” is necessary within the Bank itself to ensure its effectiveness in meeting these priorities. “The Bank has a very important leadership role to play. It is the unique multinational, multilateral development institution, with unique credibility and unique objectivity.”

Wolfowitz was unanimously confirmed as the next President of the World Bank by the institution's Board of Executive Directors, representing the Bank's 184 member countries, at a meeting March 31st.