| April 20, 2004 (Verbatim tramscript of the videoconference which took place at the offices of the World Bank,
Avenue d'Iena, Paris, reported by Anne Hazelwood) List of participants Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Good morning to everybody in different parts of the world, and perhaps the first thing that I would suggest is that we introduce ourselves. There is translation into French, and translation from French into English, and I think for the benefit of everybody it would be nice if we could have a quick introduction of the people that are going to participate. The first thing I should say is we are privileged to have here in Paris where I am sitting a group of friends from civil society organizations in France, and perhaps I could ask them first just to quickly say who they are, and then perhaps we can do a quick round in the other places. So if I could ask you to introduce yourselves very quickly, and name your organization?
Ms. de MAREZ: My name is Laetitia de Marez, I am the climate campaigner for Greenpeace in France.
Ms. PREITKOF: My name is Suzanne Breitkof, I am a consultant with Friends of the Earth.
Ms. BOUCHANINE: My name is Majda Bouchanine, and I am working for the campaign of the Friends of the Earth Friends for the reform of the financial institutions.
Mr. DESJONQUERES: I am Damien Desjonqueres, Programme Director of Care France, which is a member of the Care International Network.
Mr. TOUBON: Robert Toubon, Equilibres et Populations, advocating health and education, particularly for women.
Mr. MESNY: Philippe Mesny of ACDE, which is the largest consortium of French operational NGOs.
Mr. BOYER: Christoph Boyer of the Faith and Justice Network, France.
Mr. GUILHARD: I am Nicolas Guilhard, I am working for the French NGO Agir Ici, and I am here representing the “Reseau IFI”, which is a French NGO network working on the IMF and the World Bank.
Ms. GIRARD: Annie Girard, I also belong to the Faith and Justice Network.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much, now we will go quickly around the other sites and ask Belgrade, where we have friends from Serbia and Montenegro, could you come in Belgrade?
SPEAKER from BELGRADE: Good morning Mr. Wolfensohn, good morning everybody; we are very lucky to have here some great participants from civil organizations in Serbia and Montenegro. We are going to go quickly around the table, I am Caroline Jungr, I'm the country manager here for the World Bank.
Mr.NIKOLIC: I am Milan Nikolic, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Belgrade.
Ms. Jadranka Jelincic, Open Society Institute.
Mr. VEJVODA: Ivo Vejvoda, Director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy Regional Branch making project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Mr. ANTIC: I am Petar Antic, I am Director of the Minority Rights Centre.
Mr. DERETA: Miljenko Dereta, Director of Civic Initiative, Belgrade.
Mr. DELIBASIC: Ivan Delibasic, Confederation of Liberal and Conservative Students
Ms. MINIC: Jelica Minic, European Movement.
Ms. POPOVIC-PANTIC: Sanja Popovic-Pantic, President of the Association of Business Women.
Ms. POPOVIC: Dana Popovic, Centre for Liberal Democratic Studies.
Ms. DABIC: Ruzica Dabic, CRNPS Centre for Development of Non-Profit Organisations
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you all very much, now let's move to Burundi, Burundi would you come in?
Dr. SEBUDANDI: My name is Christophe Sebundandi, I am President of the Observatory of Government Action.
Ms. NIBIZI: My name is Eulalie Nibizi, President of the Teachers Trade Union of Burundi, STEB.
Dr MBUZENAKAMWE: My name is Josee Mbuzenakamwe, I am a coordinator of a national NGO fighting against AIDS.
Ms. Marie-Claire Nzeyimana: My name is Marie-Claire, communications associate in the World Bank.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much then Burundi, we would now move to Zambia, to Lusaka, could you come in Lusaka?
Mr. MOYO: Good morning Mr. Wolfensohn, good morning ladies and gentlemen; from Lusaka we have several civil society organisations, and we are very excited, we are very happy to engage with you to discuss issues pertaining to civil society. My name is Stephen Moyo from the Integrity Foundation of Zambia, and I have several colleagues here, maybe they can introduce themselves.
Ms. FUNDAFUNDA: My name is Gina Fundafunda, I am working with a local NGO People's Action.
Ms. LOPA: My name is Ada Lopa, I work for Zambia Civic Education Association.
Bishop MUSUSU: I am Bishop Mususu with the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia and representative for the World Forum.
Doctor SIAME: I am Daphetone Siame, country director for the International HIV/AIDs Alliance in Zambia.
Mr. MATOTA: I am Anthony Matota representing PAX Zambia.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much Zambia, and now let us go to Rabat in Morocco, where I was two weeks ago.
Mr. MOURI: I would like to introduce first of all Ms. Mounira Bouzid Alami, who is a manager of the Initiative Development for Children and Women in Difficulty, and she is going to present all the colleagues around the table.
Ms. AMALI: Good morning Mr. President; my role is to present to you Mr. Chahbhouni, University Professor of the Development Centre for the Marrakesh Region.
Mr. BELKOUH: Mohammed Belkouh, President of the Third Millennium for Development and Childhood Protection City of Errachidia.
Mr. OUZOUHOU: Mustapha Ouzouhou, of the AZILAL Association for Development and Communication; Mr. Mohammed Tabyaoui, Professor at the Fez University and the Scout Association.
Mr. HAMAD: President of FONDES Foundation, and Ms. Zahira Bibou of the Association of Women from Agadir and I have already been introduced, I come from the north of Morocco from the city of Tangiers. Thank you for your interest for the Moroccan civil society.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you all very much, I think we have an extraordinarily diverse group joining us today, and my hope would be that I could hear from you the issues that you think are on the table and respond as best I can to the questions, but let me take three minutes only to tell you that this is an important week for us, because we will be having the Spring Meetings in Washington, when 184 countries will join in reviewing an agenda which starts with a study of where we stand in terms of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and that report is now out on the web and will be available in hard copy within this week in most locations. The findings of the report basically are that by 2015 the world will probably achieve the goal of halving poverty, but that will only be done because of the extraordinary advances in China and in India, but that in many other parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, the goal will not be achieved, and in the case of sub-Saharan Africa, significantly will not be achieved, and in fact might even be worse by 2015 than it is today. The other conclusion is that on the other objectives of the Millennium Goals that we will not achieve most of those, we will make some good progress, probably better in education than in health, and about in the middle is some of the environmental objectives, but we are putting this forward really as a call to urgent action.
I for two years have been saying that I thought that the Monterrey Consensus and the Johannesburg Agreements were excellent statements, but that the sense of urgency was not present, and that is one of the reasons for the conference coming up in May in Shanghai, to see how we can scale up our programs and projects, by bringing together the governments, international institutions, civil society and private sector. But hopefully to try to convince people that the issues of the Millennium Goals are no less urgent than the issue of Iraq or Afghanistan or of terrorism or of the Middle East, which take most of the attention today, and where people are diverted from the basic subject of social justice and equity, and are focusing on the crisis points rather than on dealing with the substance of the issues, which is in our judgment significantly linked to poverty and injustice.
The second central thing that I am raising with the group is the Education for All Initiative, which I think we as an institution, and in particular in contact with quite a number of educational CSOs, we have tried to press the international community that if they are really serious about achieving Millennium Goals, then you need a plan on the part of the developing countries, but you also need funding on the part of the wealthy countries. I selected Education for All because I thought it would be the one thing everybody would agree about and finance, and what we have discovered is that it is very difficult, even for a subject as popular as education for all to raise the necessary money, which confirms again to me that there is more language, there are more statements about intent and not enough action, so I hope I can embarrass the governments into putting in some more money.
The third thing I am introducing is a further review on debt which was difficult to introduce, but which will allow for further discussions at the annual meeting, when we take a look at the whole issue of aid, but I was anxious that we look at the same time at the issue of debt, not just HIPC, but more broadly at the problems of debt. This preliminary paper, which is also available, sets an outline of how we are going to take a look at this problem, so those are the nominal things the meeting. For me the most important part of the meeting is to try to get a sense from finance ministers, particularly in the wealthy countries, of what they really believe they are likely to be able to do on development assistance and trade, and try and cut below the rhetoric and find out whether at this moment they are prepared to enthusiastically move into funding and in opening markets, rather than just talking about it.
I am fighting quite a battle, I must tell you, because every time one tries to get this centrally on the agenda they come up with all sorts of questions about practice, about how well people are doing, there are always a thousand questions about what other people are doing or not doing, including the Bank, when I believe that the system is actually functioning reasonably well at the moment, but that it needs funding. This is what we are trying to do, and in most of the rich countries today they are much more concerned about terror, about Iraq, about crises, much more concerned about budget deficits, employment, migration and internal issues than they are about development. That is just the fact, and if it is the fact then what I want to really put on the table are what are the repercussions of that fact, so at least we will have a chance to put these issues on the table.
Now let me perhaps ask our colleagues if we can, our hope is to have a round of questions, and to go to each location for one question, and then I will make an attempt either to answer it or to avoid it, and hopefully I can answer the questions, and if there are things I cannot answer we will arrange to follow up with an answer that will go to everybody.
Let us start with Belgrade and Serbia and Montenegro, could we have your first question, and we will run round the table; it will be in the order of Belgrade, Burundi, Lusaka, Paris and Rabat. We will do one round and then we'll answer, and then we'll do a second, and hopefully we can do a third, and I am very happy to do that if someone will give me a piece of paper so I can write the questions down.
Let's start with Belgrade.
QUESTION from BELGRADE: Thank you very much; we all agree on the role of developed civil society and NGOs in the democratization processes and in transition processes, so my question is what can the World Bank do to help NGOs’ capacity building, especially having in mind the role that NGOs will play in the implementation and monitoring processes of the PRSP?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you for the question, let's move to Burundi?
QUESTION from BURUNDI: Burundi is attempting to get out of a severe socio-economic crisis characterized by a drastic set-back on all socio-economic indicators, a galloping HIV/AIDS infection, and a considerable debt burden. The crisis has undermined the State itself, which no longer can adequately fulfill its traditional functions, namely the social protection, access to education, basic healthcare. It is affected by several government-related problems. While welcoming the WB's openness to exchange with the civil society, what are the concrete and sustainable measures for capacity building and empowerment of civil society the Bank will provide in order to ensure the full and responsible participation in the management of World Bank-funded projects?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Merci pour cette question; we are going now to Lusaka in Zambia?
QUESTION from LUSAKA: In your opening remarks I think you did mention concerning the Millennium Development Goals, and that probably some of these will not be reached, and I think you mentioned quite a number of areas. I think we feel strongly that what also needs attention is the question of HIV and AIDS, and in this case we are looking at for instance remedies are now available, but then there is the question of supporting civil society efforts, the question of providing equipment for blood counts, provision of test kits and so on. We are just wondering what will be the role of the Bank in terms of scaling-up some of these things that I have mentioned?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: I will attempt to answer that, and I didn't mention it in my summary, but let me say that AIDS is on every agenda at our institution, and I apologize for not mentioning it.
The first question from Paris will come from the representative of CARE. Mr. DESJONQUERES: This may surprise you, I know CARE, you visited us a few weeks ago, and our conviction is that it is absolutely essential to associate the private sector and to bring it on board the boat of development. This is something we are fully convinced about; we have also noted these last few years that there is a scarcity of capacity in the private sector to understand development issues. To take up the example of AIDS it is obvious today that when you manufacture cement or you extract oil, you are not necessarily in a position to bring an answer to the problem of AIDS. Therefore we feel that there is a lack of capacity, that there is a cultural gap which will not surprise you between the business world and the world of development to simplify things, and also we feel that there are mutual expectations which sometimes lead to misunderstandings. The private sector misunderstands the development sector, the development sector misunderstands the business sector, so my question is the following: can the Bank say loud and clear that the private sector is not the miracle partner, but one of the possible partners for development, and if so are you aware of the limitations I have just mentioned? Do you consider that in order to establish the link between civil authorities, the private sector people involved in development, including NGOs and I know a number of French or international NGOs which would be ready to act as a broker to establish that link, do you think that they can play this role? As far as we are concerned we are an NGO, and we consider that the private sector should be more involved in development.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you for that question, and now we move to Morocco?
QUESTION from RABAT: Yes, the question for you Mr. President, we are worried, concerned about informal education which is indispensable as you know to try to compensate, to offset the disasters of national education. We are very worried because currently education is being questioned, not only from the statistical standpoint, but also from the content and quality of the education. We are concerned and wonder what could be the role of the World Bank in the organization of the reform of administration in Morocco, and for the support of the missions in the field, women and children in schools, and the large reform of the Family Code and Women’s Rights. We are currently working on informal education which is being questioned by the Government, and we are worried as NGOs because we have worked for a few years on this topic. We are very worried because the partnerships with the National Education Ministry are being put into question, so our question refers to the PRSPs; thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you for these comments and questions, now I am going to reply to a number of these questions, and let me make a general observation first, which I am making given that I have now done nine years in this job, and may or may not stay on after a tenth year, so maybe I have some credibility after nine years, and let me make one important observation, at least I think it is important, and it applies to some of these questions.
The thing that I have learned in these nine years is that we all very often talk about working together, and today we have been talking about capacity building by the Bank with NGOs. We have been talking about how we bring in the private sector into the development process, we have been talking about cooperation between official institutions and unofficial institutions.
What I sense, if someone were to ask me honestly what do I see as the single biggest problem it is that all of us put the other organizations in a certain box, and there are just in-built antagonisms and distrust which pervade practically every relationship there is. I feel it very often whenever I am
confronting civil society; I look around the room, and I look if there are people over the age of forty who have been activists against the Bank in the past. I know that fifty percent of them hate my guts, they have no confidence in me, they don't trust me, they don't trust the Bank, they feel uncomfortable being in the room, but they have come along because they feel they have to, and maybe there is something they can get out of it. Confidence is almost the last thing that is in the room.
That is true I would add for some people under forty, and I can generally tell when they smile or don't smile whether they feel this about the Bank, so I have a little litmus test of my own as to how I can judge, but since at some point I am not going to be in the room, so I am not making this personal, I am merely saying that one of the biggest problems of cooperation is ourselves. I have a lot of people in the Bank who cannot stand NGOs because they get constantly criticized every time they try to do something by NGOs who think they could do it much better.
You asked the question about private sector, and what we have been doing. Ever since I got in the Bank, for nine years I have been working with the private sector, trying to bring them in to the equation. Your organization has done well too, both in getting funding and in concrete projects, as I learned in Atlanta, but generally the view taken by NGOs about every private sector company is that it can't be any good, it is only there for the profit motive, and they have no social conscience, and if they do it is done for tactical reasons. So we all have these images about each other which to me has become the biggest barrier to much of the work we are doing.
Now I get to the first question, capacity building in NGOs by the World Bank; this is a subject which is really now very much on the agenda. It has been raised with me significantly in the last twelve months; at one point the Bank would not have been welcome at all in terms of capacity building because it would have been thought that the enemy was trying to teach civil society, and so the notion of the Bank having well-developed programs to train the people who are going to try and burn down the building of the Bank seemed like a very strange thing to be doing!
Fortunately it has eased to a point, and I think part of this comes from the Poverty Reduction Strategy, itself something that gets criticized, but I remind you the objective of PRSPs was to bring civil society into the process, very often when the Governments didn't want it. That process is moving forward, and what we are prepared now to do in the Bank is to take a fresh look at what would be useful to civil society in terms of programs. We have some already, we have got quite a number through World Bank Institute, but the question was raised in Belgrade, and the question was raised again in Burundi that if you want civil society as a partner then there is a need to build capacity. What I am going to suggest when I get back this time is that we get a small group of people together with the World Bank Institute to take a look at what are the programs we are now doing, what are the programs which civil society thinks could be useful, and could be dealt with neutrally without making civil society have to say we love the Bank, or we agree with everything that is going on in the Bank, but what is it that will facilitate the capacity of NGOs to do their job, and if the Bank cannot finance it then work together to see if we can get proper training of people in NGOs, and also very often for communications capability in NGOs. So I will be suggesting when I get back to Washington that we get a small group, it doesn't need to be a huge international conference, it should be a small group of people who can try and pull together what are now the capacity-building activities of the Bank and others, and how can we put this on the agenda as something that becomes a normal part of life. Then in different countries if people want to take advantage of these sorts of opportunities then we would have a menu of courses, a menu of assistance that we can give, and do it on a basis that there is mutual respect. We are not trying to diminish criticism, but that there has to be a certain level of respect in doing it, so that the parties can come together in the belief that neither one has the moral advantage.
I have ten thousand people working with me who do not feel morally inferior to everybody in the NGO movements. They feel that they work pretty hard every day, maybe they make mistakes, but they get up every day trying to do good things, not bad things. They are not there to ruin the world, some NGOs think that's what they get up to do, but they don't, we even have a lot of people who come from NGOs to work at the Bank, so some of them must be okay! So I will take up this question of capacity-building when I get back, and I will make sure that we can sit with some representatives of NGOs, and maybe even from Belgrade and Burundi since they asked the questions, to try and see if we can deal with this question in a more comprehensive and effective way.
Now on HIV/AIDS the question was asked, let me start by saying this is, for me, and has been, an enormously central problem. I am on the way from here to Berlin to try to make a speech on AIDS with the Chancellor in front of European supporters in the private sector to try , and this gets also into the question of private sector, and see how programs with the private sector can assist in fighting AIDS. There are many companies, we are actually giving some prizes for companies that have done a lot of work in this, and it is very important that the multinational companies have this as a central objective which is also self-interest because of the huge number of deaths in senior employees, so I really do think that if there is an area in which cooperation is required it is that one. We have now, I have just got a final report that we have got 20,000 sub-projects now in the Bank with civil society on AIDS programs, many of them with sort of $ 300,000, $ 500,000, $ 800,000 support, 20,000 of these things in the so-called MAP program, and that is, now dispersing faster than I think anywhere. We have got now a very substantial grant element which we have been fighting for also.
All I can say is that it's better than it was a year ago, and it's moving up fairly quickly, but there are teething problems in many countries. How do you deal with small amounts of money? How do you get the government officials and the health departments to be prepared to cede authority to local NGOs or the communities, when in the past the power of the Health Minister and the Health Ministry was control of the money and they are no good at getting out to see the people. So how do you get them, as part of our programs, to be convinced that when they get our programs the agent that is going to get it to the people is in fact civil society, because otherwise you don't have the distribution mechanism? That is something that we are running into in a lot of the countries, it is a cultural thing as much as it is an issue of AIDS. It's the bureaucratic process in the countries, and also there is a lot of corruption. If you get rid of the money you have got nothing to be corrupt about, and you are also worried if you give the money to somebody that they are going to be corrupt, so this corruption problem which was raised earlier is really important. But let me say that on HIV/AIDS and on private sector we are doing a lot, whether it be the Prince of Wales Trust which you probably know brings a lot of European companies together, or work that the Bank is doing. I spoke this week at the Security Council. It is only the second time in history that a President of the Bank has spoken at the Security Council. I did it the first time, interestingly enough, four years ago with Al Gore on AIDS, saying that AIDS was a security issue.
This time I spoke on private sector, and Kofi Annan spoke and the head of Siemens spoke, and then all the ambassadors spoke, and then you will be interested to know I gave three press conferences, and three television interviews with a variety of journalists to report on what I thought were very brilliant interventions, and I didn't get a single question on private sector, every question was on Iraq, every question on three television journals, every question was on Iraq! No interest in the subject of private sector, no interest in the subject of the Security Council, just on Iraq. So I want you to know that a lot is going on, but it's almost impossible to break through the current preoccupation with terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan.
So I am very happy to take up with you in Care this initiative, we talked about it in Atlanta, and it is very clear that private sector must come in, and that a lot is happening, but I get back to my first point, there is also huge distrust of the private sector on the part of civil society, as there is still distrust of international financial institutions. I hope less than we had nine years ago, but it is a process, and I think at some point what we have to do is to declare a truce, not about the ability to criticize, but we need to have a sort of a moment together where we say look if we trust each other, what could we do together? Not asking people to give up their beliefs that they have formed for twenty years, but to just say look, we all have these preconceptions, but if we could have a moment where we just forget the history and see what could we do if we trusted each other, I think that we could make significant progress.
The problem today is within the NGO movement that for some, even if they talk to the Bank, or they talk to the private sector, they are ostracized, they are pushed out, they are regarded as turncoats, they are regarded as not being reliable, and we somehow need to get a moment in which we actually sit together and say look, put aside prejudice for six months, let's sit down and see what, if we trusted each other we could do together, because I personally do not believe that it is possible to solve the problems of global poverty unless we work together. The Bank cannot do it alone, civil society cannot do it alone, the private sector cannot do it alone, the governments cannot do it alone, and the crisis at the moment is that all of us are not making headway with the G-8, or even with many leaders in developing countries about what each of them should do. We have a mutual crisis which we are facing, and if we keep attacking each other we are wasting the effort on the big picture. I probably will be retired before that is a possibility, but it is what I think personally is needed and then the last question on informal education in Morocco.
As you know, I am in Morocco frequently, I just met with the Cabinet when I was there and with Mohammed Six, and I had thought that the King's initiative on the New Family Contract, and the new recognition of women and the new focus he is putting on education was indeed moving in the right direction. But if there is this problem about informal education, I would be very, very glad to take it up, and what I would suggest is that you talk to my colleagues in the office in Rabat to formulate what are the specific problems that are occurring in this changed policy, and we in the Bank will be very happy to intervene. I would personally be happy, if it is necessary, to speak to His Majesty about it and see if I can put things right. I am sorry it's not a subject I know specifically, it was not raised with me when I was in Morocco recently, but I would be very glad to take it up. So let's have a second round and move to Belgrade again?
Mr. VEJVODA: Ivan Vejvoda, Director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy of the German Marshall Fund; Mr. President, this is a question of more effective government and public administration. What can the World Bank do, with all of us together, to enhance government capacity in public administration and civil service, because we have seen as members of civil society, that however strong our civil societies are, if the government is not catering through its institutions to public interest and the public good, then we are not really looking at the development of a modern society. Practically related to that of course is the issue of e-government and what and how modern technology and communications can help in that effort to disperse building of government capacity?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you for a very interesting question, which if I had been more thoughtful I would have tried to plant with somebody, so I am very glad to get that question, and I will be happy to respond. Let's go back to Burundi for the next question?
QUESTION from BURUNDI: Burundi has ninety percent of the population is rural, farming is the main economic activity. The crisis has seriously struck the production system, however the population managed to organize itself through community development groupings, which progressively became frameworks for reconciliation and understanding; however these frameworks need a particular support in order to achieve a lasting impact. What has been the Bank's experience around the world in supporting community development? How could this be brought to bear to enhance community development in Burundi? Thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Well thank you again for that question, which plays directly into the subject that we will discuss at a global conference on in Shanghai in May, and I will be glad to answer, but let's now go to Lusaka in Zambia.
Ms. KASANDA: Thank you, my name is Lucy Kasanda representing Jubilee Zambia; we have heard from you sir tabulating some of the areas and issues that concern us greatly that will be tabled at the next spring meeting, and we are happy about that, that you will be reviewing and including the implications and the debt issue for countries such as Zambia, but our concern is what do you expect from these consultations? In particular we recognize that you have the capacity to galvanize more support towards big grants in financing more HIPC programs currently being considered by Zambia and many HIPC countries?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much for that question, and I will try and give you my expectations, and the next question will come from Friends of the Earth here in Paris?
Ms. BOUCHANINE: Our question is related to the Extractive Industries Review; I just very quickly read the joint statement that was issued by Mr. Emil Salim, Eminent Person, Extractive Industries Review, and yourself on behalf of the World Bank yesterday. After reading it I assume that the World Bank wants to make a concrete link between poverty alleviation and the fossil fuel projects, and energy projects in general, so we just have a few questions regarding this. In a short-term view we firstly ask you how do you intend to make a relation between helping the poor and maintaining the fossil fuel projects? Because at the moment we have the impression that eighty percent of the projects of the World Bank are directed to exports, and if not it is directed to urban people and industry mainly, so we are wondering how the poor people are helped with these kind of projects? In a more long-term view we think that it increases climate change, and it is now indisputable that climate change will, will be a major cause and will very highly impact the poor populations of developing countries. So this short-term view and this long-term view makes us really wonder how can you make a link between the fossil fuel projects and helping the poor? Then we just wanted to mention also that one very good point with renewable energies is that it can only be used in a local manner, it cannot be exported, and it is sure that local people will be the beneficiaries of this kind of project. The second question is related to the .... Mr. WOLFENSOHN: That's already three questions!
Ms. BOUCHANINE: Well that's three aspects of one question actually!
The second question is very fast; we wanted to know if the Bank intends to support renewable energies, and in that case how would you intend to share the funding between renewable energies and the fossil fuel projects, because if more projects are dedicated to renewables, does that mean that it reduces the amount of money of the portfolio of the total energy, I hope the question is clear?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: I think it's very clear, and I spent all of yesterday on this subject, so I am very ready to answer the question. We move finally to Rabat?
QUESTION from RABAT: Thank you; my question is what about the MENA for the implementation of the networks between the World Bank on the one hand and between these NGOs and the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank on the other hand? Thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much for again a very interesting round of questions, and let me try and respond to them.
First of all, if any of you ever read the paper I did eight years ago on the Comprehensive Development Framework, which subsequently became the framework for Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, and then became the basis for Monterrey and Johannesburg in terms of the agreement of what developing countries would do, and then what developed countries would do, the number one responsibility for developing country leadership was to strengthen capacity, number one.
If you do not have capacity in government, then you run every sort of risk by supporting that government, not just corruption but just very bad execution, and an inability to spread economic and social benefits throughout the community. What was agreed in Doha, and Monterrey and Johannesburg, and is also a part of NEPAD, the program for Africa, the number one item is building capacity.
Number two is preservation of rights, getting a legal system that works, thirdly a financial system that works, and fourthly the combating of corruption. Related issues in terms of infrastructure, education and health were all included in this, but in terms of the general agreements on which the subjects were agreed, number one was capacity building. Let me include in that also the extension of your question, which is capacity in technology, and in particular the use of e-government as a methodology, as a tool that can help governments to govern. We took on this question, and I would say that the largest part of all the courses we are doing in World Bank Institute relate to building capacity in different forms and government. The place that I felt we needed to do it most was in Africa, and seven years ago I met with every president in Africa in three separate regional meetings, not once but twice, to try and establish a capacity building program for Africa, as we have done for the countries in eastern Europe, and I have to tell you that I was very saddened by the lack of response in Africa, even though we put up $ 150 million of grant money to get this thing started.
Finally today we now have more programs going, in Harare and on video conference and other ways, and we have a very rich array of courses that are available for strengthening government capacity. I am frankly not familiar with the particular courses that are offered in Belgrade, but I can tell you that we cover the field in terms of programs for government officials, and I will make sure that today we follow up on the specifics of the Belgrade requirements in terms of strengthening of government, and very specifically within the course of the next week our office there and my colleagues in Washington will follow up with you to try and see what are the particular areas you think have gaps, and to review with you and with your colleagues what you think would be useful. I might tell you that also on e-government, through an institution called the Global Gateway which we have set up and spun out, I have got contributions from three governments, India, Korea and one other that I can't momentarily remember, and we are setting up training institutes that are particularly concerned with e-government and the use of technology. The leading place in the developing world that we are working with is Andhra Pradesh, which is a state of 78 million people in which we now have every village linked by fiber optic cable, and it is sort of amazing that in a poor state like that the Premier sits with the computer and has information on everything that is going on in his state. So we have lots of examples, and I will make sure that we come back to you and deal with it.
On the question of the farmers in Burundi, one of the slow developments but which is picking up tremendously speed is the whole question of community-driven development, and there are two aspects to this. The first is that I absolutely believe, and I think many people believe that what is essential is not to regard poor people, rural or urban as a sort of problem, as the object of charity, but to engage them in the solution as an asset. It is a change of mind, it's to say yes we have hundreds of millions of people that are poor, but what you don't want to do is to give them something, what you want to do is to engage them in the solution, because if you engage them in the solution, first of all they know the problems much better than someone who is rich and living outside, and secondly they are local, and thirdly it's sustainable, because they are there to do it. There are literally thousands of examples of community-based solutions to problems, whether it be in education in Central America in the middle of a civil war, whether it be in organizations in Burundi as a result of civil war, how do people just get on with it, whether it be as long ago in India as organizing the distribution of food during the famine. When you give money in a local community, let the people decide the order in which the money needs to be spent because they know what the timeline is and what is important. We have thousands of examples. So it is very clear to most people now that including communities is at the very center of development, but the question is how do you scale-up, how do you increase the use of examples that are satisfactory, that are working well, how do you take them to scale?
I remember being in the country of Georgia in the former Soviet Union, and being in the country where there was a cooperative program in rural settlements which was going fantastically, it helped on the technology, it helped on water management, it helped on financing through a cooperative, and I said to my people there how many of these are we doing? They said well we are doing thirty villages, and I said what's the cost of the project, and they told me, I've forgotten what it was, and I said how many villages are there like this? And they said 3,500, and I said well I call this a feel-good project, you do it and you feel good that you have done it, but do you realize that you are getting to one percent of the villages? What you have got to do is to scale-up, the object is not to come up with a project about which you feel good, the project is to look at how do you scale it? So this is the subject of the conference in Shanghai; we have done seventy case studies around the world, and there will be hundreds of people coming, because really this is the issue. President Lula when I mentioned to him said I want to come, so Lula is coming from Brazil, we've got leaders from half a dozen countries; the Chinese themselves are incredibly interested in this, and they have been on a lot of these case study missions.
I will make sure that someone from Burundi comes to that so that they can participate literally in understanding what we come out with, but for me this is one of the most important initiatives that we have taken, how do you move in the context of community-driven development from feel-good projects to scale? That involves many differences in terms of management, and in terms of outlook on time, because you can't do 3,000 villages in a couple of years, it means someone has got to stick with it for five or ten years, and most organizations are not set up like that, not NGOs and not governments.
Many people are just looking to have a project that is satisfactory, they get it, they get a promotion, they go and do something else. It's the very rare person that is prepared to stick with something for twenty years, like getting rid of river blindness, or getting rid of TB, or taking people off high country areas in China. We have got a fantastic project in China, we will take three-and-a-half million people from the high mountainous areas and put them down in lower areas. We have had one man there for fifteen years who knows everything about it. He is not back in Washington getting promotions, he just knows everything about that, so it is fantastic. He has been there fifteen years and he has done an amazing job because he's had a long time and he knows everything about it. These are the issues which we are trying to look at, and most of us, NGOs included, are sort of like mosquitoes, we go do something and it's fine, you get some blood and then you go somewhere else and you bite someone else. So this is a very good question, and I think it is one that we are very much concerned with.
On HIPC and on debt, what do I expect? I don't expect much at this meeting; debt, trade and additional aid are all the same question for most finance ministers, it's a question of income, it's a question of resources they are prepared to put into development. Unfortunately if you look at the figures of 2002, and there was $ 58 billion of aid distributed, - if you can call it distributed, - because only about $ 30 billion went in cash, $ 6 billion of the $ 58 billion is debt relief. When we started HIPC the idea was not to have debt relief as part of the aid, because I was there, and it was never thought that people should substitute HIPC contributions for aid, it was never contemplated, in fact it was specifically not contemplated, because I remember saying to people don't think you are going to get rid of your obligations because of the provision in point seven by forgiving debt. But you will find $ 6 billion of the $ 58 billion is debt relief, and my guess is in the new figures that come out, we don't have the detail, but it will probably be about $ 8 billion. The reason I am keeping the pressure on debt, and I forced it on the agenda this time, is because I think we've got to bring this together, hopefully at the Annual Meetings. They refused to allow me to have it on the agenda for the Spring Meetings; the question of adequacy of aid, they just refused. That's why it's an interim report, because they want to push it until September, and frankly the G 7 wants to push it to next year, because next year the UK will be in the chair and not the United States.
I have told the people in the United States that they are crazy, and that they should not give up leadership on debt relief or on aid, because they are the largest donor, not the largest proportionally, they should give a hell of a lot more, but I think what is happening is that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are prepared to push this next year, and I frankly don't think in an election year in the United States you are going to see much progress. I hate to be realistic, but I am getting so old that I can be, and that is frankly what I think is the case; I think we can keep the pressure on, but there is no-one in the current US administration that is even prepared to talk about it. The reason that I am using to try and have them talk about it is I have told them if they are going to forgive, arrange to forgive $ 90 billion of $ 120 billion of Iraqi debt, the moment that happens every country in the world is going to come and say take another look at our debt, particularly countries that have debt that was assumed under dictators or in wartime or in the Cold War, because they have been given an open invitation. If you relieve $ 90 billion of debt because of Saddam Hussein, why don't you relieve debt in Nigeria or in other countries, many other countries that suffered under dictators? It is logical, so I don't think much will happen at this meeting, I think there is a very good chance that it will happen in September, and it is my hope that the US, which is in fact the largest contributor will grapple with this question, and will keep the initiative on it at the meetings that will be held in Sea Island, Georgia of the G 8, and that meetings with the new G 21 will keep pressure on this issue. I don't know what the solution is, let me say that to you right now, but it clearly is an issue.
The Friends of the Earth question on sustainable, on extractive industries. I don't want to get into too much detail on that, because I had a very, very good meeting yesterday with Emil Salim who chaired the report, but as we said in the statement, very little separates us on the objectives, very little. You may or may not know that Bob Watson, who chaired the Commission on Climate Change, works for me in Washington. You may or may not know that I have had a lifelong interest in this. I was even at the Stockholm Conference before you were born probably on the subject; that was more than twenty-five years ago I believe in the science. I believe, I actually believe that coal and oil and use of fossil fuels is affecting the environment. I have a son who is an environmentalist who is currently making a film on the subject, so even if I wanted to forget it I couldn't, because he beats me up all the time on global warming! He was a composer who went back to Yale to do a course in environment, and he's now making movies, so I cannot get away from the subject, even if I wanted to, but it so happens that I did discover it quite some time ago, and I think what you will find is that we come up with a pretty good answer by June, but there are a couple of things that I think you should understand.
At the moment renewable energy accounts for two percent of global usage of energy, two percent; the report asks us to increase our investments to twenty percent a year, which is no problem, because we are investing now $170 million a year in renewable energies. If you want it to be $ 330 million in five years, it's not a problem, but it doesn't solve the problem, it will allow us to double our contribution. Any estimates for twenty-five years out, the best estimates are that renewables will be between three and four percent of global energy usage. The other thing which I think is not adequately addressed in the report is that 2.3 billion people in the world today don't have any energy, don't have any energy. They are going out and cutting down trees and using bayonets, and two million of them are dying from asphyxiation every year. So it's a wonderful thing to think about, and I commend the report, and we will take a major initiative I hope on renewables, a major initiative. But what we have to think about if we are talking about poverty is what about the 2.4 billion people who have no energy today, and that on any expectation will grow to 2.8 billion in the next twenty-five years? They, in my opinion, are an equal challenge on the environment, because they are running out of trees to cut down. I promise you that we are getting into the question of fossil fuels, and control of it, and we have discussed fully yesterday the issues of communities and indigenous people, but we discussed it, it is under review now. We were specifically general because we each have work to do; the work I have to do, since the report was not a consensus report, this was basically an advocacy document, much of which I agree with, but in the coming months I have to talk to civil society, private sector and governments.
My coming out with something that's not going to work, as I explained to Emil yesterday is not something that's going to serve him or me very well, so we have a very clear tight timeline for discussion with interested groups. You will all have to wait six weeks. I am not going to break my understanding with Emil from yesterday. What we said yesterday is true, we agree on the objectives, trust me I understand the questions. I am actually one of the few people in the world that has read the six volumes, although I would not want to be examined on the detail of some of the middle volumes, but on the extreme volumes I have read them in detail. I have annotations all over them, so I understand the issues. We will come back with a recommendation to our board by June, and before we go with the board to a final recommendation, I will be meeting with Emil Salim again to make sure that we've not forgotten something, and I want to stick with the result I had yesterday. I'm not going to be drawn beyond it.
Ms. BOUCHANINE: I'm sorry to insist, I just wanted to say that the question was not related to the position of the Bank on the report, but just to ask you how do you make a relation between these projects and helping the poor, just in an abstract way. Because for the moment we didn't see any relation, any concrete impact of these kind of projects on the poor people, that's all?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Well I really don't want to be drawn on that subject, you have to wait two months, you have waited twenty years, wait another two months, and I will give you a properly integrated answer. I do understand the issue, I do understand that there is a strong view that any exploitation of coal and oil is against the interests of poor people, that it is only in the interests of a few people and rich companies, and that it is adverse to the poor. I truly understand the arguments. Let me come back to you in two months time with a more complete answer, and for the next two months you can continue to dislike what we do, but I promise you we are looking at the question and I will come back to you in two months' time. It has never been under more review than it is now, and I don't want to get drawn into the issue, because I want to give a complete answer, and not an answer one by one.
Then the last question on the MENA program and the relationship with the parliamentarians; again, to be quite honest with you I am not aware of what is the link between the MENA program and the parliamentarians, except that each program is working well, and I think it is a terrifically good idea to think about how we can link the parliamentary network with the MENA network. I thank you for the suggestion and I will follow up on it, and I will once again get back to you, because I think it is a terrific idea, and someone might tell me that it is. I am already being told on my right that it has already started, but whatever is the answer we will back to you with a definitive answer, and I'm sorry I don't have detail.
Why don't we have one more quick round of questions, we can do another twenty minutes, so if we could make some quick questions? The worst offender is me with the answers but that's okay, at least I'm trying to give you full answers. Let's go quickly to Belgrade?
Ms. POPOVIC: Dana Popovic, Centre for Liberal and Democratic Studies in Belgrade. Mr. President, considering your long experience could you please point out a success story, a case study which is a success regarding debt sustainability? What I mean is what did the World Bank do which was a success, what did a specific country do? What was the role of monitoring, what was the actual strategy that was maybe involved or not? and what were the critical points, who was the key, what was the key institution to resolve the problem, and well what went wrong elsewhere if there are not many success stories? Thank you very much.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you, the next question is from Burundi?
QUESTION from BURUNDI: Mr. President sir, thank you for this opportunity. My question is: Burundi is living in an environment in which media did not always play a constructive role, and has sometimes been characterized by hatred messages similar to those in Rwanda. At the same time the press can play an important role in the consolidation of peace and the transparent management of public resources. What has been the past experience around the world in relation to the media, in particular in a post-conflict environment so it can really play its role of counter-power, peace and development consolidation? Thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you for that very interesting question, let's go to Lusaka?
QUESTION from LUSAKA: Mr. President, we recognize the efforts that the Bank is making with regard to good governance and the fight against corruption. As we indicated earlier, we would like to see some fast-track action on a number of activities, including HIV/AIDS which is one of the three main areas of concern. Our immediate interest is to find out from you sir what the Bank is saying that Zambia is doing correctly in the fight again corruption and in attaining good governance? We are particularly concerned that there seems to be mutual mistrust which you rightly pointed out between various sectors, government on one hand, civil society on the other, and indeed sometimes even with the Bank. We would like to see a mutual working together between these entities, for example we would like to see work on the constitutive assembly which has been mentioned several times in our country, and the problem is not that we are disagreeing, but we don't have the resources. What can the Bank do to assist, realize the very vision that our government, civil society and the Bank have on achieving development with regard to good governance and fighting corruption?
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you very much for that question, the next question comes from Paris from the representative of AGIR ICI?
Mr. GUILHARD: Thank you; Mr. President, as you know since Mr. Köhler's departure from the IMF there have been strong debates regarding the selection process of the IMF managing director, and these debates are of course also relevant for the selection process of the World Bank President. In this context, and given that if my understanding is correct your current mandate as World Bank President will end in a few months, we would like to know what is your position about this "gentleman's agreement" that allows European governments to have the managing director of the IMF and the US Government to appoint the World Bank President? Would you be willing to support a reform of such a selection process in order to get a more competitive and transparent process, not only relying on the national criteria? Maybe more precisely, what would you think about the idea of getting the World Bank President to be appointed by the UN General Assembly? It's just a suggestion? Just another quick question on education, you said in your opening statement that you would be willing to embarrass the donor countries, and we really are one hundred percent supportive of that. We think that maybe one good way to do it would be for the World Bank in its capacity as member of the Secretariat of the Fast-Track Initiative to publicize the financial gaps that the Fast-Track Initiative is facing. Also, and very importantly, to name the donors that are very slow to act. It would be very useful for the civil society, because then we would be able maybe to put more pressure on these countries; thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Thank you for your two questions, and now finally Rabat?
QUESTION from RABAT: Thank you Mr. Chairman, my question is I want to know if the World Bank has a strategic vision to work with civil society in the framework of programs, action plans and strategic role? We in Morocco we have a micro-subsidies program, but this program has to be developed in order to build a good program and efficient development, and to participate in the global program and good governance, thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSOHN: Well again another terrific round of questions which I appreciate very much.
The first question from Belgrade on debt sustainability. I mean there are a number of examples, but I can go immediately to Uganda, which has reached a completion point and has freed up its debt service, which has gone down by two-thirds since the HIPC program started. It is very clear and traceable that the funding that has come from the HIPC debt relief program has been used for social purposes, and in particular education and health. President Museveni in fact opened up universal primary education in part because of the additional funding that would flow from the debt relief from HIPC programs. In total we have now done $ 57 billion, and that has translated in most of the countries to a reduction of two-thirds of their debt service. It depends significantly in each country as to how they are using the money, but the HIPC program seeks to monitor the use of those funds mainly for social purposes, and some countries are doing it better than others, but I would say broadly it is a success in terms of the original objective. Since I can claim authorship of the HIPC program, which I remind you did not exist until eight years ago, I think HIPC has made a very good start in terms of dealing with the poorest countries. It is almost unbelievable, but once eight years ago civil society actually gave me a party and drinks for having brought about HIPC! I told them then that I thought their enthusiasm for me would last two weeks until they would tell me that it was not big enough! It didn't take two weeks, it took about two days, and since then of course everybody says HIPC is not doing enough, and the question of debt relief needs to be dealt with more But HIPC was a huge breakthrough in terms of cracking the dam on debt relief, and I think that it is improving every year. We have now done twenty-seven countries, and we are addressing the question of “topping-up”, as you know, in Niger and in Ethiopia at the moment, and subsequently Senegal. Senegal actually will come in for completion point, and I think we have opened the subject.
As I said to you, I think Iraq is going to open it even more, and the reason that we have got this agenda item on the spring meetings is to start people thinking again about debt. I would say the HIPC program, even though most NGOs think it's not enough, has in fact for what it is, been successful, and the thing that I think, it has been slow, slower than I would have wished, but it is something that never existed eight years ago. So I think it's the first step that was very important, and I personally think that it has been a success.
Burundi raises the question about press. I mean I am a huge advocate of press freedom, but in many countries, including your own, no statement that I make is going to make the difference with your governments, and how they treat the press. In a lot larger countries and a lot richer countries there is very often too much interplay between government and press. All that I can say is that we are running programs through WBI all around the world on journalists and training journalists, and talking about press freedom, it is a major subject for us, and it is a subject that I raise and write about publicly, because I think the press is incredibly important to a free society. My worry at the moment is that the northern press, which significantly has freedom, is not serving us well on the question of development, and just as I said to you at my meeting at the Security Council this week, the press and television immediately after the subject of development come out and ask about Iraq. I am just trying to say to you that even a free press sometimes is not an effective press on issues that you are interested in having pursued, but a free press is a hell of a lot better than an un-free press. So we are deeply committed to it, and what we are doing is to actively support freedom of the press, and actively help train journalists.
The Lusaka question is what resources do we have available on two issues, one is corruption as I understood it, and the other is fast-tracking HIV/AIDS? At the moment I believe that the problem on HIV/AIDS is not the availability of funds, it is the availability of delivery mechanisms, and the huge variations between countries on costs and on supply distribution. We signed this last week an agreement, together with WHO and some others on essentially using generic drugs for Bank programs, and we are now down to roughly 67 cents a day for a generic cocktail that can be delivered in terms of treatment. But just to give you an example, we are also putting money into condoms in Africa. The average African male is currently being delivered two condoms a year - that's not a very effective mechanism if that is the delivery. So I think that with a combination of the Fund for AIDS, the global fund and what we are putting in, and what civil society is putting in, the real issue today is distribution, and still, even at this late stage, government support and government recognition. Africa was in denial, just as Europe is in denial today, and just as some parts of India and China are in denial today, so we must raise more money for AIDS, but it is not the only issue. The AIDS question is an issue of culture, it is an issue of governance, and I fear terribly for some parts of Eastern Europe and for China and India.
The Indian question is monumental; you could have India having more AIDS cases within a few years than Africa does today; we don't know how many cases there are in India, but it could be six or eight million, and doubling every eighteen months. You don't need anything more quick than that to start getting into the tens of millions, and certainly going over the one percent which is a level when it is very hard to then stop things. I think momentarily we have got adequate resources, momentarily, and the Three by Five initiative of WHO; three million people under treatment by 2005, I think is achievable, but you have forty-two million cases. So we may get to three million, but we need also to be looking at alternative and much cheaper methodologies, even of prolonging life, maybe looking at the issues of selenium and aspirin and stuff like that, which people sometimes things are sort of kooky and off-the-wall. If an extended family in Africa has ten people that need to be treated, and even if we get the cost down to a dollar a day, or 67 cents a day; that is ten dollars a day that needs to be found and families aren't earning that much. It is still an insuperable barrier. This question of AIDS fast-tracking that we just have all of us to consider pressing, because it is a divisive and extraordinarily dangerous problem. On the question of corruption let me simply say that we are now working in a hundred countries on corruption. The corruption issue is out of the box; it is now something that people are talking about and working on, but it remains at the core of many, many of the countries in which we are operating. I am hoping very much that we can help clean out all the processes of government, or at least contracting on international institutional contracts, this is a long road, but we have taken the first step and the issue of corruption is very much out of the box now. Your second question was on the Fast-track Initiative on Education; well at the moment you can virtually embarrass all those on terms of the Fast-track Initiative with the exception of Holland, which has put in nearly ninety percent of the money. Most other donors say we don't need to put money up for a fast-track initiative because we are already doing it, and the big problem that we have is to get countries to commit to additional funding. They all say we are already doing education funding, but when you add it all up it's still three to four billion dollars a year short of what is needed to reach the goals. We are trying to embarrass people, but embarrassing them on money going into the Fund is not going to embarrass them, because their answer is going to be well we are giving money to education in other ways, and we don't need to go through the Fund. That's the fight that we are having now. We've had two meetings; the last meeting we got a couple of million dollars, but the donors would not allow it to be called a funding mechanism for Fast-Track. They said it is a catalytic fund, it is a fund that will stimulate direct grants to the countries. We are caught in this terrible bind that there is a need for three or four billion extra, a demonstrable need. We are going with only ten countries, and we can't raise the money for them.
If we say the country we need it for is country x, they say well we are not interested in country x, we are already giving money to country a, b, c and d, and education is our most important program. So it really gets down again to these countries increasing the amount of aid they are doing, and on education you have got to commit for ten years. You can't commit for one year and have everybody hire teachers and get the kids into school, and then not have them be able to go the next year, so it is a battle we are in the middle of I'm afraid.
The last question from Morocco is do we have a strategic plan for working with NGOs? The answer is we are trying to find one. As I said right at the beginning part of the issue is the distrust issue, and part of it is that on the part of our Board, I have to tell you that they are not very interested in taking our profits and giving monies to NGOs. Some people are, but many of the governments in our place regard NGOs as the political opposition, and many of the governments in our place say well what do you need NGOs for, we are the elected representatives of the people, and you are dealing with governments, you are an institution of governments, and we are your owners and we are elected. I can tell you that what we are doing constantly is to push the envelope to try and engage NGOs in projects. In over seventy percent of our projects now we have a civil society contribution, but we are doing it mainly through governments, and the rest of the program we are doing we are just having to beg, borrow and steal money to try, and the most we can do in most cases is small grant programs, so it's a problem I have with the board.
The last question which I have left to last is the question of my resignation or retirement and who is going to run the Fund? First of all my term comes to an end in May of next year, and there is a lot of speculation as to whether I can stay, want to stay, am lobbying to stay, not lobbying to stay, or think someone else should get the job. The simple answer is that I don't know what I am going to do. I know that I am not going to speculate about it until the end of this year, I want to look at it six months before, because I don't want to be a lame duck, and I don't want to be an idiot and be out there trying to lobby for something and then lose. I think that everybody should love me so much that there should be an overwhelming demand for me to stay. So I'm giving people a chance to react that way, and if there are demonstrations outside my office to say please stay Jim, we can't live without you, that would influence me! But I am at an age where there are a lot of other things I could do, and I have had ten fairly brutal years. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do, I truly don't know. My family would like me to leave, but I don't know, there is a lot to do.
As for the selection process, I have no part in it, this is a shareholder matter; I am pushing the shareholders to decide themselves. I have a private view, which I will express the day I leave, but in the meantime I'm going to leave it to the shareholders. This is a very sensitive matter, and we do not have a voice, to be honest with you.
Since I am working desperately hard for my pay check I have to be certain that I get it so that I can pay my mortgage. I think you will find that this is a subject that is going to be debated, but not by me, by the shareholders, and if you want to debate it you should just keep the pressure on. But it looks from the papers today as though there is a consensus candidate with the election yesterday of Jean Lemoore, I haven't spoken to Jean Lemoore and I haven't spoken to Rodrigo Raton, so I don't know what the situation is, but I'm just reading the papers this morning, it look as though it's a European candidate that is likely to get the job. But I have absolutely no knowledge other than what I read in the newspapers, and maybe someone else will come along. I just don't know. The only thing I can promise you is that I will not leave this job to become the President of Australia, unless the republic comes in more quickly than I expect!
There are two things I am supposed to tell you, that the transcript will be posted on the website very soon, and that we will follow up on capacity building for CSOs and government officials, and I thank you all very much for coming. Thank you all overseas, it was really for me a very interesting session. |
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