Tackling poverty a priority for Zoellick

from the Financial Times

By Krishna Guha in Washington

Robert Zoellick on Wednesday set out his vision for the World Bank as a “catalyst” for private and public action to extend the benefits of global integration to the poor and in doing so make globalisation more “inclusive and sustainable”.

The speech – Mr Zoellick’s first big statement of strategy since becoming World Bank president 100 days earlier – positioned him as a hard-headed multilateralist who is committed to the bank but determined to deliver more effective results.

The world needs multilateral institutions to address the challenges of globalisation, Mr Zoellick said. But these institutions “need to combine deliberations with effective results”.

The new World Bank chief said that globalisation “offers incredible opportunities” for billions who have been drawn into the global market since the cold war ended. But many “remain on the fringes and some are falling further behind”.

Mr Zoellick said it was the bank’s mission to overcome obstacles to inclusion in the world economy and allow what Oxford University professor Paul Collier called the “bottom billion” to share in its benefits.

He also argued for a strong role in addressing “the environmental challenge of this extraordinary surge of growth” in much of the developing world.

He said inclusive globalisation was not just a moral imperative but a “matter of self-interest” for citizens of the rich world. He embraced the Millennium Development Goals as “our goals” and made it clear they could not be achieved without many billions of dollars in extra aid.

However, he said the poorest countries also wanted help to “build infrastructure for higher growth”.

The bank’s role was “not to finance the investments by itself” but to act as a catalyst for capital and policies through a “mix of ideas and experience” backed by financial resources.

“We should be expanding the frontiers of thinking about policy and markets, pioneering new possibilities, not just recycling the passably proven,” he said.

He emphasised the need for the bank’s private and public sector arms to work closely together to promote public-private partnerships in the poorest states and back regional infrastructure.

Mr Zoellick set out six priorities for the bank: overcoming poverty and promoting growth in the poorest countries; helping failed or failing states; offering more sophisticated services to middle-income countries; supporting the environment and other global public goods; fostering fresh dynamism in the Arab world – which he called “one of the most notable challenges of our time”; and developing a “brain trust”.

He signalled a willingness to engage in subnational lending and provide some bank services for fees rather than bundled with loans.

Mr Zoellick said the bank had “work to do in strengthening our approach to dealing with governance and corruption”. But he dismissed suggestions that bank staff did not understand how important this is.

He said the bank should increase its lending to emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil, both to help the poor in those countries and to engage them in global efforts to reduce poverty and secure the environment.