Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Program and Howard University

Keynote Address
by
Mamphela Ramphele
Managing Director
The World Bank Group
Howard University, Washington, D.C., October 31, 2001

My thanks to Howard University and Dean Orlando Taylor, and to the Sasakawa Young Leaders Programs of Howard, the University of Sao Paulo, York University, Massey University and the University of the Western Cape, for inviting me here today. I am honored to be a part of your Forum on Social Inequality, and hope that the perspective I bring to this important subject will enhance your discussions over the coming days.

You of course couldn't have known it when you proposed this series of discussions, but the issues of social inequality and intolerance provide the essential subtext to events leading up to and since the tragedies of September 11. Beyond our immediate reactions and feelings to these events, how we address the broader challenges ahead will literally define the history of this new century.

One of the most enduring equations of history has been the tragic interplay among poverty, racism, xenophobia and intolerance. Rarely in history have these elements been found in isolation. And where they coincide, the result has been injustice and indignity: a cancer that consumes both the lives of its victims and the souls of those who hate.

My own organization, the World Bank, was born in the shadow of the second World War with an overarching premise - that poverty is at the heart of the inhumanity that becomes war. So our mission is not legal, although we rely on laws. Our mission is not political, although we rely upon nations. Our mission is not theological, although we rely upon faith.

Our mission is developmental. It is not to enforce rights, but to engage and invest in such a way that they can be achieved. It is to use capital, knowledge and partnerships to end poverty - regardless of whether that poverty is the cause or the result of hatred, discrimination and intolerance.

Our mission is to help create values - in every sense of that word - that can withstand and vanquish those forces that diminish, demean and destroy. And we do so in practical ways that reflect the hard-won wisdom of experience on the ground, not any perfect models found in textbooks.

Culture, for example, was once thought to be little more than the novel endowment that history gave to each people - their language, art and traditions. We now know better. Culture is the fertile field necessary for both individual inspiration and common ventures. It is a precondition of productivity and progress. For no person will work beyond mere sustenance without a reason, a larger cause, or a dream.

That is why we have put strong safeguards in our policies to protect indigenous cultures. We recognize that each culture is a priceless tapestry of history that cannot be replaced. It must be preserved and respected, especially in this era of globalization. It must be preserved in order to provide a context for the present, as many of the conflicts and inequalities of modern life have, at their base, religious and cultural roots that go back centuries. To understand a people and their motivations, you must first understand their cultural history.

Experience has taught us that global economic integration is an engine of prosperity. However, economic prosperity must benefit every citizen, not just the powerful. The voices of all members of society must be heard and made a part of development strategy. People can be empowered, but only if we inform and consult them. People can be empowered, but only if their leadership is both engaged and held accountable.

Our aim is very clear. We want to help the people of developing nations withstand the homogenizing forces of modern life when they so choose, and embrace the benefits of scientific and technological progress when they are prepared to do so. No culture should be put in a glass case. A culture should be vital, so that it can rise, advance and evolve.

The challenge, of course, is to ensure that ethnic identity is not expressed as a claim of innate superiority or entitlement. Nor should it be expressed as hatred or the verdict of history. It was once thought that time heals everything. We now know better. We know that resentment, anger and the desire for retribution can fester generation after generation. Bitterness over an ancient transgression can turn into a living prejudice, and minds poisoned in this way come to view skin color, language and cultural expression not as treasures of diverse legacies, but as brands of collective sin.

Such hatred and bias, armed with the power of today's weaponry can destroy centuries of progress and goodwill. This is why the World Bank has worked with the United Nations and others in places like Bosnia, East Timor and Sierra Leone to help post-conflict societies repair the fabric of trust, mutual respect and social capital necessary for lives of peace.

Far too many times in the past, nations have tried reconstruction while ignoring reconciliation. Far too many times, nations have tried to rebuild cities while ignoring civil society. We now recognize that we can and should do better. That is why we are investing in hearing the voices of poor and powerless people, alleviating the grief, and empowering the communities that feel defeated, dispossessed and victimized. True tolerance and peace, of course, can never be purchased, but they should be given every chance to thrive.

It was once thought that ownership was nothing more than a legal right to possession, that every legitimate claim on time, capital and value had to be formal or codified. We now know better. We know that communities of all sizes are interdependent webs of informal ties and indirect consequences. We recognize broader obligations to our fellow men and women.

That is why the World Bank has worked to enlarge the group of stakeholders who participate in our plans and projects. We have sought out and heard the voices of poor people -- the voices of women, the voices of villagers, the voices of those without political power, but equally legitimate claims on the future. And we will continue to do so.

One of the worst forms of discrimination is the patronizing deafness of the aloof and indifferent. And it makes no difference whether the deafness is caused by an ideology or an institution. Silence can wound as much as words. We now recognize that true ownership comes through a participatory process. True ownership comes through empowering people. True ownership is not a one-sided claim - it is a conversation.

All forms of intolerance have one essential thing in common. They seek to deny the full dignity to which every human being is entitled. Dignity is a birthright that is indivisible. Dignity requires hope. Hope requires imagination, and imagination requires opportunity.

Whether that means working with governments on health, education and HIV/AIDS; or working with the private sector on manufacturing, infrastructure and information technology; or working with civil society on tolerance, participation and social capital; we recognize that the way in which we pursue our mission is as important as our results. We cannot hope to be moral, tolerant and humane in performance, if we do not uphold these values in policy and practice.

This is the "challenge of inclusion." And it requires a personal commitment on the part of each and every one of us. It is very easy to draw lines that exclude and divide people. It is very hard to draw lines that embrace and encompass people. That is our challenge - to keep our hearts open, to keep our minds open, and to offer our hand in a meaningful way.

We at the World Bank work every day to promote progress in the war against poverty and inequality, and we hope that our work makes a difference in the world. There is much that we have done in the past half century that has been successful. Yet I am mindful that we have not always achieved our goals, and have sometimes been a part of the problem.

It would be naïve to claim that we will not make mistakes in the future. But institutions are capable of learning, capable of building upon the insights of experience. Unlike a half century ago, the world today presents us with many more voices to discuss the best ways to reach goals we all agree are necessary - a fairer, more equitable world, where democratic institutions work to provide for the needs of their citizens in a transparent and just way. And the capital necessary to achieve success toward their goals - both financial and human - also comes from more diverse sources.

So we understand that development in the 21^st Century will depend on effective public/private partnerships, and finding ways for the many voices speaking about the needs of developing countries to listen to one another more effectively as well.

Today, the world holds 6 billion people, more than half of whom live in profound poverty. 1.5 billion don't have access to clean drinking water; 125 million children don't attend primary school. More than 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, 24 million in Africa alone, and thousands more are infected daily.

In 25 years, as children born today at the beginning of the new century are reaching adulthood, there will be 2 billion more people living in the world - all but 50 million of them in developing countries.

And this is the real nexus between poverty and disenfranchisement, between the powerful and the powerless, between North and South, and between rich and poor. Unless we find the ways and means to address fundamentally the questions of inequality, unless we are able to provide meaningful hope for inclusion and opportunity for everyone, our children will not live in peace.

We need no present reminders of this. The proof of this theory lies in the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York, and in the bitter intolerance and gender bias that has ruined Afghanistan's hopes. Inequality has bred hopelessness and despair, and despair has opened the door to acts of inhumanity that have the capacity to spread with breathtaking speed through our increasingly globalized world, disrupting and sometimes derailing our hopes for the future.

Terrorists may feel that they have struck at the heart and symbols of power and prosperity, but the impact of their actions will be felt most acutely by poor and powerless people. As we go about our efforts to regain a sense of normalcy in our own lives, we must redouble our efforts to address the urgent needs of those whose very lives are more at risk today than ever before.

For those who are students today, the challenges ahead will define your futures. While we feel a responsibility to leave you a world which is more equitable and at peace, there is also a plain truth - when solutions to the challenges of the 21st Century are found, it will be your generation, and that of your children, that will find them.

We hope that those of us who work in development today can make a real difference for the half of our population who live in poverty and inequality. But this is your century. It is where you will live the great majority of your lives.

And you should ask yourselves, when the world celebrates the beginning of the next century, what will be said about the profound changes of this one now beginning? Will it be written that a way was found to live in peace, with a broader prosperity shared by everyone? Will we have found a way to work effectively together to find answers to pandemic health problems that threaten our existence? Will we have broken the constraints of illiteracy and guaranteed educational opportunities for all our children? Will we have reached a point of understanding that the differences between us - economic and cultural - are common challenges rather than barriers that separate us?

Our grandparents and great-grandparents probably asked similar questions at the dawn of the 20th Century, and many of their fondest wishes for us have come true, as well as many they could not even imagine. However, the century has also brought global war, unresolved ethnic and religious conflict, increasing gaps between those with wealth and those in poverty, and discovery of the means to obliterate life on our planet.

Social and economic inequality are integral legacies all of our histories have shared, and the exploitation and disenfranchisement of majority populations for the benefit of elite minorities are recurring, common threads in our cultures. It has certainly been a defining element in my life. Yet I stand before you today not as a victim, but as a voice strongly raised against the tides of history and convention.

From our varied cultures we can draw the understanding of how inequality has influenced human development. From history we can learn the consequences of intolerance and racial, ethnic and gender bias. Yet it is only from the human heart that we can contemplate the possibility of reconciliation and redemption; and only through the convictions of our spirit that we find the will to conceive an equitable future in the world.

Thank you.