Paul Wolfowitz assumed leadership of the World Bank Group on June 1, 2005. He is Bank's 10th President. More information about World Bank President. President Wolfowitz has had a number of opportunities to meet with civil society organizations during the first three months of his term. This has included several meetings with international NGOs in Washington, and numerous contacts with CSOs while in traveling in Africa, Balkans, and South Asia. In Burkina Faso he met with women’s groups in Ougadougou and rural community leaders in Ramatoulaye. In Nigeria, he met with AIDS activists, women leaders, and Fulani nomadic herders. In Rwanda he spoke at a youth forum "Never Again International" about the need to ensure that the genocide committed in that country cannot occur again. In South Africa he visited a Soweto-based orphanage for babies living with HIV and met with women's organizations. | 
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| In Bosnia and Herzegovina, after participating in the remembrance ceremony for the victims of the Sebrenica massacre, he met with youth groups to discuss the Bank’s “New Voices” program and hear their ideas on education reform, AIDS prevention, and environment. While visiting Pakistan he met Parliamentarians and women leaders and researchers. In India he visited the state of Andhra Pradesh where he met with hundreds of community leaders representing the most disempowered groups in society |
such as widows, leprosy patients, and the Dalit, or lower-most caste to talk about the Bank-funded Andhra Pradesh District Poverty Initiatives Project.Wolfowitz said he saw village women, one after the other, express themselves articulately - "some far better than many of my graduate students at John Hopkins". He realized then the empowerment he was witnessing was "not just a material transformation but a spiritual and psychological transformation".
He also met with a group of NGOs in New Delhi, India to hear their concerns about the Bank's water policies and distribution projects in the country. In Bangladesh he met with representatives of one of the largest NGOs of the country, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), as well as visited a school for low-income children. | 
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In Washington, he has had several meetings with leading international NGOs to discuss the Bank presidency transition process and his vision for development. He was also invited to speak at the annual InterAction Forum in Washington which brings together the 160 international CSO member agencies to discuss the latest development trends, exchange experiences, and carry out advocacy at the US Congress. Mr. Wolfowitz spoke during a luncheon to an audience of approximately 400 civil society leaders and staff persons. Reflecting what he stated in the other CSO meetings, he recognized the important role civil society plays in the development process and pledged, as Bank President, to continue to strengthen ties between the Bank and civil society. He highlighted several key functions carried out by civil society. The first is voice as CSOs bring the concerns and perspectives of poor people to policy fora and government decision-making processes. Second, they leverage financial and human resources and thus complement what governments and donor agencies contribute.
 | Third, civil society offers innovation and new ideas, just as the Bank needs to be not only a knowledge bank, but an “ideas” bank by taking risks and testing new approaches. Fourth, CSOs can play a key role in improving governance by promoting social accountability and transparency, as well as fighting corruption. Finally, he has stated that civil society is one of the building blocks of democracy |
and cited French historian Alexis de Tocqueville who visited the United States over 200 years ago and was impressed by the associational nature of the emerging American civil society. For more information on this event please see the story in InterAction's Monday Developments. August 2005 |
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