Tim Ziemer:Paul, as President of the World Bank, I know you have a passion and you are committed to doing something against Malaria. Could you just give us a quick glimpse of the effect of Malaria on the economies in Africa and what the World Bank is doing about it?
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Paul Wolfowitz:Happy to. I am going to mention some statistics… I think it is important to think at what's behind the statistics. In fact, we have heard several times that horrible statistic of a million children dying a year or 3,000 a day.  But just stop and think on September 11, 2001 when 3,000 people died in one day in this country and think of what it did to us and then imagine that is happening every day, day after day, in Africa. But the kids who die are the worst tragedy - but it’s not the end of the tragedy - the ones who survive are sick.In many African countries, we have millions of children that are missing four weeks, on average, four weeks of school. Imagine your kids trying to get a decent education when they are sick four weeks in an average school year and then you think about the parents that have to stay home to take care of those kids, missing four weeks of work. It’s a huge drain on the economy and these are very poor economies. In Nigeria, the per capita income is just a little bit over $400 - imagine your family trying to survive on $400 per person and then imagine that 13% of that $400 every year is going for Malaria treatment.
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It is a huge drain on the economy and some estimates are that it is costing African countries as much as 12 billion dollars a year - it's a staggering number. I mean, it makes even the generosity we are talking here today with respect to malaria,  it dwarfs it. So there is a huge economic gain to be achieved by conquering this disease, it will more than pay for the investment. You asked what's the World Bank doing. I think, first of all it is important to repeat what it has been said here - none of us can do this alone - it’s a partnership, its public-private, its private corporations, its faith-based groups.
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As an American, Mrs. Bush, I'm incredibly proud of the President’s Malaria initiative and what Tim Ziemer is doing and the contributions to many organizations. As head of the World Bank I’m proud about what the Bank is doing. To the American tax payer I want to tell you that you are getting good value for your money. For every thirteen cents of American money, we are leveraging a dollar of contributions. We work at the World Bank with Ministries of Health, like Minister Lambo's and I think it’s only fair to say that in the first half of this decade, none of us were putting a sufficient priority on malaria. The result was that in five years, the first half of the decade, the World Bank only put $150 million, just $30 million a year, into malaria campaigns. We looked at that. We created fifteen months ago something called the Malaria Booster Program and I’m very happy to say that we’ve already committed $357 million to some ten countries plus the Senegal River Basin project that covers another 4. And just two days ago, my Board approved the single biggest program to Nigeria, to help Minister Lambo and the seven most vulnerable states of Nigeria, with a grant of $180 million. I’m very happy about that. And there is more coming.
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Our goal is to reach $500 million in three years of this program. But money is just a start. It has to be applied in the right way. We have to coordinate with other donors. Most of all, we have to monitor results. We have to see what is actually happening on the ground. And as Dr. Chan has said in the meeting we had yesterday, Malaria in Africa is tougher than anywhere else in the world, and what works in some places may not work in others. Last year, earlier this year, excuse me, in Abuja, Nigeria, we agreed on the Abuja targets so that all the donors and all the twenty governments are going to aim at the same results and we are going to measure ourselves and monitor ourselves and this disease can be licked and must be licked. Thank you.
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