Wolfowitz Urges Africa Aid to Prevent Terror `Breeding Ground'

from Bloomberg

By William McQuillen

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, ending a weeklong trip through Africa, urged developed nations to increase aid or risk the continent turning into a ``breeding ground for terrorists.''

Developed nations have a moral obligation to help, Wolfowitz said March 9 in an interview in Kinshasa, Congo. He said former combatants in countries recovering from civil war might resort to terrorism if not for a $100 million World Bank program to help them return to civilian life.

``There is a huge self-interest in helping,'' he said. ``It's not good for the rich world, and particularly not good for Europe, to have so many people in Africa living in misery and trying to flee here, even potentially becoming a breeding ground for terrorists.''

Wolfowitz, on his third trip to Sub-Saharan Africa since he took over as president of the lender in June 2005, is making aid to the continent a priority. His visit is a prelude to a yearlong campaign to raise at least $18 billion from rich countries that the World Bank will then use to build schools, roads and clinics in poor nations.

Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy Defense secretary, may be hampered by his role as an architect of the invasion of Iraq, which was unpopular in many parts of Europe, and by conflicts with members of his board of directors.

``There is no doubt that Wolfowitz will be a liability on fundraising,'' Manish Bapna, executive director of the Bank Information Center, a Washington-based group that monitors the lender, said in an interview last week.

Wolfowitz, 63, dismissed such suggestions.

`Undefined Issues'

``It is such a really outrageous contention,'' he said, ``the idea that they're going to punish billions of poor people because they have some undefined issue about my management.''

He also defended his anti-corruption drive, which prompted him to suspend aid to countries such as Chad. Critics have said the push threatens to reduce aid to the needy. Britain last year held back about $94 million from the World Bank, saying the lender had attached too many conditions to its aid. The money was later released.

``There's a little more resistance to it than I would have expected, and it doesn't come from the poor countries, it comes from the rich ones, which is kind of odd,'' Wolfowitz said.

More than $330 million of development aid has been ``wasted'' in Africa over three decades, Wolfowitz said. He said Western aid propped up the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Congo, then known as Zaire, from 1965 until 1997. The country endured two civil wars that killed 4 million people between 1996 and 2003.

`Moving Forward'

The bank should ``support people that are moving the country forward instead of just throwing your money at whoever happens to be in power, which I'm afraid was the record of the first 40, 50 years,'' he added.

World Bank assistance is helping development in African countries such as Ghana, which have a chance to become low-cost manufacturing centers like China, he said.

This year, the World Bank is providing about $450 million in aid to the West African nation of 22 million people. The bank last year pledged about $2.3 billion to all of sub-Saharan Africa, where it estimates 300 million people live in poverty.

``When Africa becomes a productive place,'' Wolfowitz said, ``we'll all gain from it.''

Budget constraints among donor countries will be the main challenge for the World Bank fundraising drive, according to Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development in Washington. Still, she said there is ``still this tension and skepticism to the role Wolfowitz has taken toward corruption.''

Debt Forgiveness

The last effort to raise money for the bank's International Development Agency, which dispenses aid to the poorest nations, ended in April 2005 and netted $18 billion. Wolfowitz needs to raise billions more this time to make up for money lost from an international agreement to forgive debt of poor nations, Bapna said.

``The real problem isn't going to be anything personal, the real problem is money's hard to come by, even in rich countries,'' Wolfowitz said.

Wolfowitz used his trip through Ghana, Burundi and Congo to highlight World Bank programs that have built marketplaces and put more children into schools. In Kisangani, in northern Congo, he met former combatants who are receiving stipends and vocational training.

Schoolchildren in Kisangani mobbed Wolfowitz as he emerged from a caravan of United Nations vehicles, singing ``praise him'' in Swahili and chanting his name. The reception offered a contrast to some of his trips in the U.S. and Europe, where he is heckled by anti-war protesters.

In Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, Wolfowitz met business leaders such as Charles Nikobasa, general manager of the Petrol Importers Association.

``Your presence is a signal of hope,'' Nikobasa said.

To contact the reporter on this story: William McQuillen in Kinshasa, Congo at bmcquillen@bloomberg.net .