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Unleashing the Power of Partnerships




Welcome Address to the 2nd Annual Staff Exchange Program - World Bank
Conference & Expo

by
James D. Wolfensohn
President
The World Bank Group

Washington, D.C., May 9, 2001

Let me first of all welcome all of you very warmly to this second
conference. As I was walking around with Kathy Sierra this morning, we
were commenting that this wouldn't have happened six years ago.

Now, let me let you in on a little secret.

When I first came and I used to get the personnel records of my
colleagues, I would see the record of the involvement in the Bank and
there would be gaps from time to time and I'd say, well, what are the
gaps? And they would say, well, that's when they weren't in the Bank.
They were on the outside. And I said, but, you know, isn't that relevant?

And according to the old Bank practice, knowledge came from here, not
from people like you, and there was this crazy thinking that the World
Bank was somehow unique and that the outside world was there, but it
wasn't really part of the development of individuals. People were scared
to leave the Bank because they thought the reintegration into the
institution would be very difficult.

All that, thank God, has changed, and today is a celebration, so far as
I'm concerned, of the fact that we have not just got a staff exchange
program, which itself would be valuable for us, an opportunity for us to
send our colleagues and have our colleagues go and have the opportunity
of working with our partners on the outside, and also to be enriched
internally by the assignment from your organizations of colleagues to
come and work with us.

I cannot tell you how enriching that has been in itself. But what has
been quite remarkable in the hands of my colleagues is that that has
emerged into something much more.

It's emerged into a basis on which partnership is created, built on the
personal links that we had, and from a difficult first and second year
when, in all candor, we didn't quite know how to handle people that were
coming into the organization, and I guess some of your organizations
didn't quite know how to handle our people.
Thank God, that has settled down, and I believe now we have a truly
effective program with very few glitches in which we are, I think,
maximizing the effectiveness to each of us of the relationships that we
build from staff exchange and from getting to know each other better.

If you look at the list of the 119 companies, now 120 since one was added
this week, if you look at the list, you'll see the diversity of the
people with whom we're having partnerships, from the corporate world,
from civil society in its different forms, and for us, this is truly an
enrichment and a recognition of the different focus that the Bank has on
development.

Ten years ago, it was possible to argue, and indeed, 20 years ago, it
certainly was possible to argue that the center of the development
activity was, in fact, overseas development assistance and that private
sector and civil society were very much in the background. Ten years ago,
the flow of funds to developing countries was around $30 billion a year
and overseas development assistance was $60 billion a year. So we could
say we're twice the size of the private sector. The private sector was
focused on very few countries. And civil society, while active, had
nothing like the penetration that it has today.

Well, in 1997, private sector investing, which included bank lending and
portfolio investment, reached $300 billion, up from $30 billion in ten
years, and overseas development assistance diminished. And even today,
after the Asian crisis, the direct investment is still just short of $200
billion and we are still at $50 billion.

So from being half the size, depending on the year, private sector is
four or five or six times the size in terms of dollar volume. And, of
course, in terms of creating jobs and technology, it has become an
enormous factor in the development process. And in addition to that, the
projects that we're doing overseas, and as you know, the Bank has
contributed, in our terms, over $300 billion in our lifetime of
activities, financing probably projects that are double or treble that in
size.

The involvement of the private sector is, of course, essential, and so as
a source of partnership in terms of our own activities, the volume has
risen dramatically, and our involvement both at the project level and
through IFC and MIGA, our private sector arm has brought about a new rich
array of possibilities for us.

The same is true of civil society, which in its many forms doesn't always
love us, as you've seen on the streets, but where there are many, many
constructive relationships developed. We have a lot to learn from non-
governmental organizations and community organizations around the world.
We have also got a lot to contribute, and one of the things which is
emerging, again from our partnership program, is to have our people work
in civil society and have some of their people come work with us. Pretty
soon, we discover the other group does not have horns and does not
breathe fire, but, in fact, we're all trying to achieve the same
objective.
And so for us, the idea of partnership,   the   idea of reaching out, is
really a reflection of the way in which   the   institution itself is now
working, because we have concluded that   the   challenge of development is
simply much too big for us and much too   big   for any individual
development institution.

Just to give you the numbers - in a world of six billion people, the Bank
is dealing with 4.8 billion of them. And in a world of six billion, we've
got three billion that live under $2 a day and 1.2 billion that live
under $1 a day - what we call absolute poverty. And within countries, we
have very significant differences of equity between the top 20 percent
and the bottom 20 percent.

So we start with a world that, first of all, is enormous, way beyond the
capacities even of us, and with very serious challenges, and with a set
of objectives that the U.N. has set for us in terms of poverty
alleviation, in terms of education, in terms of health.

That in itself would be a big issue, were it not for the fact that in the
next 25 years, we're going to add another two billion people to the
planet. And of the two billion, all but 60 million will come to the
developing countries. So by the year 2025, 2030, somewhere in there,
you'll have a world of eight billion people, of whom 6.8 billion, plus or
minus 50 million, will be in the developing world that we address.

If that is true, or anywhere near true, and the demographers tell us that
it is, then the only way that we can confront that issue is in
partnership, and it's not just an issue of charity or of social or
ethical values or moral values. It's really something which addresses all
of us, from the developed and the developing world, because that's the
issue of peace. If we can't deal with the question of poverty, there's
just not going to be peace on our planet for our children.

And so for me, the partnership program is more than just a new idea, more
than just a new initiative. For me, it carries within it the real
opportunity to make a difference and to establish new patterns of working
together in ways that we didn't before, not obviously immediately
sometimes because of the profit, but because it's right and because if we
don't do it, we're all going to go down together.

So both for positive reasons and for reasons of this very considerable
challenge, we're delighted to have the opportunity of being with you. We
look forward to growth of this program. If we've got it right, tell us.
If we've got it wrong, tell us. We're anxious to make it work and we look
forward to a very constructive dialogue with you in these two days.

We are very fortunate that Gerhard Schulmeyer from Siemens is going to
follow and give some remarks. We have a delegation from South Africa with
Maki Mandela. We have the Keidanren delegation from Japan, Ambassador
Ciobanu, whom I met before, from Moldova, Mr. Smith, and many others that
are here, and I thank all of you.

You will see in the programs the list of people that are joining us.
After Mr. Schulmeyer, I think a number of my colleagues on the Board of
the Bank from different countries will give you their perspective from
their level, and we very much look forward to an interchange with you
over these days, but even more than that, to our working together in the
years ahead.

Thank you so much