Saturday Oct, 9, 2010 As prepared for delivery Thank you for joining us. We have held these meetings at an important time. We have modest global growth. But as Friday’s release of U.S. payroll numbers showed, this growth is not strong enough to make significant inroads into high unemployment, particularly in developed countries. A lack of growth accompanied by high unemployment is having consequences. There is a danger that countries will turn inward and as a result international cooperation could falter. This could be dangerous. Multilateral institutions need to matter. The Development Committee represents the G-187. It represents our 187 member countries, many of which are not in the smaller “G groups” like the G-7 or G-20. It represents developed and developing, North and South, East and West. At today’s Development Committee meeting we had a very good discussion in which we had asked ministers to give the Bank management feedback in several areas. These areas included global risks and the Bank’s response; the replenishment of our fund for the poorest, IDA; our program of reforms; our work in agriculture and food security; climate change; gender, and how we could best support the G-20 and the G-20’s non-members. Ministers shared our assessment of the global economy and commended the World Bank for the record levels of support – this has totaled $140 billion since mid-2008, when the crisis really took hold. They also endorsed our strategic direction and commended us for the program of reforms, including making the Bank a more open and accountable institution. Very importantly, ministers called for a “strong” replenishment of IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest 79 countries in the world. They recognized IDA as one of the most important instruments for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. We had pointed out to them that IDA had done extremely well, but has great potential. With a robust IDA replenishment we could immunize 200 million more children; extend health services to over 30 million people; give access to improved water sources to 80 million more people; help build 80,000 km of roads, and train and recruit over 2 million more teachers. We have a meeting [Monday] here of the IDA deputies. This will not be a pledging session. We will be asking donors to do this by the end of this year. In a time of budget cuts, we are working hard to build a global coalition to share the burden of this replenishment. We are not just asking traditional donors to carry the load. We are asking former IDA beneficiaries to accelerate payments; we are making IDA recipients which are close to graduating out of the program to pay a bit more; we are asking emerging donors to contribute to reflect their growing economic weight; and we are looking to mobilize our own resources. I hope this gives you a brief sense of a long day’s discussion. Thank you. |
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