World Bank head urges help for "fragile" states

from the International Herald Tribune

World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned Friday that international community must work harder in aiding so-called "fragile" states, home to about 20 percent of the world's population, or risk them becoming the safe havens for terrorists.

Zoellick said such nations, which range from Afghanistan to Timor, can become the weak link in the global security chain if they are infiltrated by terrorists, who take advantage of the political instability there to recruit and train new followers.

"Only by securing development can we put down roots deep enough to break the cycle of fragility and development," Zoellick told a conference of international security experts in Geneva. A text of his remarks was made available in Washington.

He said the international community must put greater emphasis on securing development in these countries to help them overcome the effects of failed governments, persistent poverty and civil war.

"This is not security as usual or development as usual," Zoellick said.

"Nor is it about what we have to come think of as peacekeeping or peace-building," he said. "This is about securing development...first to smooth the transition from conflict to peace and then to embed stability so that development can take hold over a decade and beyond."

Without such cooperation, efforts to save fragile states are likely to fail "and we will all pay the consequences," he said, noting that what was needed in those states was a different framework to build security, legitimacy, governance and their economies.

Zoellick said the World Bank has committed more than $3 billion in 2008 to countries affected by fragility and conflict.

He said when states are breaking down, or overcome by conflict they pose waves of danger, threatening people living there with death and disease, economic stagnation and environmental degradation.

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