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Keynote Address by Paula Caballero: Integrating Conservation and Development for Lasting Impact
Distinguished hosts and guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be addressing such an eminent gathering of protected area professionals, conservation experts and decision makers. Thank you for... Show More + this opportunity to connect with old and new partners to strengthen and move forward the protected area agenda at a crucial juncture for parks, people and the planet.Some of you may remember me in previous incarnations, managing projects on biodiversity, land degradation and territorial approaches to climate change for UNDP, or pushing for the Sustainable Development Goals initiative from within the Colombian government. I moved to the World Bank in July with the same drive and passion because I now want to focus on implementation. As head of the new Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice at the World Bank, I see great opportunities to carry the conservation agenda forward by managing natural resources within the broader paradigm of poverty reduction and long-term sustainable, resilient development.Getting steps right to maximize present and future benefitsLet me start off with a story. A couple of months ago, on my first World Bank mission, I was in Tanzania. A country renowned for its national parks and protected areas. Indeed, national parks and the wildlife they host are the backbone of a tourism industry that accounts for a critical 13% of the country's GDP and 400,000 jobs. Tourism spurs investment and business in other sectors. It's also the largest export earner—which means it underpins the exchange rate, which makes much else in the economy possible.Nature-based tourism is thus a driver of growth in a country which still faces challenges in eliminating poverty. However, the natural assets that generate vital revenue face a range of threats.Some are more intractable such as the gruesome poaching crisis that has decimated elephant populations in the Selous Game Reserve, and demand concerted, collective international action. Other threats, however, could be readily addressed if the true worth of protected areas were understood. In the Ruaha national park, where 10% of the world's remaining lions live, the Great Ruaha River is running dry and wildlife is in decline. Why? Irrigated rice fields have increased 10-fold in the upper watershed above the park in the last few years. Because so much water is being diverted upstream, for several months every year the Great Ruaha River simply does not run, with concomitant impacts on wildlife. Streams and watering holes are drying up. In addition to impacts on the Park, this limits livelihood options for downstream communities.This illustrates a story that is played out constantly all over the globe. The true worth of ecosystem services, now and for tomorrow, is often not taken into account. Decisions are made without fully understanding the trade-offs, without identifying win-win options that would so readily deliver co-benefits. Instead, poor management of resources limits development opportunities, generating cascades of social, environmental and economic externalities. Perversely, the very assets that would lead to long-term collective well-being are eroded as a result of investments that focus on narrow short-term gains and fail to appreciate that environment is actually a core part of the development equation.Tanzania's government and business community are committed to ensuring that nature-based tourism remains a strategic driver of sustained growth. The Ruaha story is simply a reminder that resilient, sustainable development demands that we look at the big picture, one in which the health of both people and nature are deemed to be equally important as they are fundamentally interconnected. Ignoring nature inevitably erodes human wellbeing.When I started to position the SDGs I was told by many that they had to focus only on people. I always wondered exactly how that could serve humankind given that we happen to need the planet for life. Clearly we still need to make the case for the symbiotic relation between planet and people—and in this context then to make the case for protected areas. This is a vital task because unless we succeed, we will have a hard time steering decisions toward win-win solutions that help us simultaneously feed billions of people AND conserve habitats AND respond to climate change.Protected areas should be part of a broader poverty reduction strategyOur task, however, takes place against a sobering backdrop.It is what I call "receding reality"—the new normal. This is the slow onset degradation and depletion of our planet that lulls us into passivity. The fish are smaller, the forests emptier, the streams dry... Slow onset is not just sea level rise. Slow onset speaks to our progressive acceptance of a less rich and diverse world. This we must cognize and rebel against. Because a diminished planet also means that our collective global society will have failed to understand the inherent worth of protected areas.Current trends are encouraging—the global coverage of protected areas is increasing from around 9% at the first Rio meeting, to the current 15.4%. We're on track to reach 17% coverage of terrestrial and inland water areas by 2020, one of the Aichi targets. However, much more effort is required if we are to reach the targets for oceans and marine areas. We also need to ensure that these areas are vibrant and real, not paper parks.The World Bank is proud to be working with governments to advance this can-do agenda. Our work supporting the Brazilian government through the Amazon Region Protected Areas program (or ARPA), for example, has largely contributed to global progress on protected areas, by establishing, expanding and strengthening the protection of 60 million hectares of rainforest.We're also seeing more and more protected areas that are created with people and livelihoods in mind: ARPA's success is largely founded on empowering Indigenous Peoples and building assets for the poor: the program has helped secure Indigenous Peoples' rights over 45 million hectares of land, and enhanced their livelihoods by promoting the sustainable use and marketing of forest resources.My hope is that these best practices are carried forward into the new Parks of tomorrow. We know conservation must benefit nature-dependent people; we know how to do conservation without fencing out the people.But we can't rely on protected areas alone. How will we feed 9 billion people in 2050? Where will land, fodder, fuel and jobs come from? Put simply, the forest will burn if people are hungry. Agriculture and fisheries drive the majority of biodiversity loss. We must look beyond the traditional boundaries of conservation, fisheries and agriculture, understand that there can be no divide, and address poverty and food security full-on. We need to promote the sustainable climate-smart intensification of agriculture, through landscape approaches, sustainable fisheries, agro-forestry, and the restoration of degraded lands. Protected areas should be positioned as core components of broader landscape and seascape development strategies. Our challenge is to ensure that Ministers of Finance and Planning and Agriculture understand protected areas are part of a functional and productive economy. By protecting and enhancing natural capital not only in parks but along watersheds, on farm land, in pastures, in freshwater and coastal waters, we can transform the economic prospects and food security of millions of people. We've seen it, for example, in Indonesia, where a project worked with 358 village communities to protect coral reefs, while improving fishing practices. Coral reef grew on average by 17% in 6 out of 7 districts, and communities' income increased by 20% since 2008. Now in its third phase, the COREMAP project is working to mainstream an approach that makes coral reef protection planning an integral part of development planning and improves the welfare of coastal communities. Natural infrastructure delivers.Truly sustainable development requires policies and economic incentives, practical tools and safeguards to ensure that protected areas sustain critical ecosystem services and promote resilience and human well-being. In the coming year, we can set the pathway to that future if we can strengthen the role of protected areas in defining and delivering on the world's Sustainable Development Goals, and by embedding protected areas in the procedures that define society's development planning and underpin economic decision making. That's why I'm excited about the future despite the worrying trends: there are proven "win-win" solutions. We have the tools to ensure that both conservation and development are fully convergent.Steering development choices toward long-term gainsThis brings me to my second point: the rebellion against a receding reality only works if enough people in different walks of life join the good fight. And on this score there is also hope. Around the world we are witnessing a growing rejection of business as usual, with many taking risks and making hard choices to halt the planet's decline, to slow down the destruction.Yesterday, China and the U.S. exemplified historic leadership in the run up to Lima, putting forth commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that should drive all Parties to greater ambition.Witness too the recent New York Declaration on Forests, with robust commitments to eliminating deforestation by national and sub-national governments, CSOs, Indigenous Peoples, companies. There is for example, a growing focus on the impact of commodities and consumer goods and the role that protected areas and natural ecosystems can play in sustaining commodity supply chains.The new Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture will be a decisive player in this effort.In addition to this, there is a growing chorus of governments and others seeking to look beyond GDP. More and more countries are asking for support from the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services Partnership—WAVES.Natural capital accounting has already helped Botswana factor water constraints in its policy choices. In the Philippines' biodiversity-rich Southern Palawan, where there are numerous competing demands on resources, ecosystem accounts are expected to provide decision makers with the tools they need to make no-regrets decisions on ecotourism, agriculture and mining. This work is challenging from a methodological point of view but politically vital. It is helping governments go beyond annual growth statistics and understand the importance of natural assets over a longer time horizon.Programs helping countries plan for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) are also having an impact, by creating an incentive for decision makers from different land-use sectors to sit around a common table, take out maps and negotiate a shared vision for the future that leaves valuable forests intact. We are creating and applying solutions to address and correct market, institutional and policy failures, by transforming how we measure and account for development and by providing clear incentives across sectors for responsible private and public investment in natural capital. And let me share, as a final thought, why this concerted, collective action is so critical in a time of receding reality. There is no question that the moral imperative of our time is poverty eradication. While we know that extreme poverty has declined, the proportion of people at risk of falling back into extreme poverty remains stubbornly high. And everyone one of us in this room knows that gains on this front will be lost unless we change the current development paradigm.The World Bank Group adopted two goals last year: to help countries end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity for the bottom 40% of the population in a sustainable manner. The second goal speaks to the rising expectations of a global emerging middle-class. We must also be prepared to manage the changing consumption patterns of this growing global middle class as this will further exacerbate resource depletion and stretch the carrying capacity of many productive systems. This demands structural, systemic changes that go beyond minimalist, quick-fix approaches. It is our collective task to ensure that those changes have at their core an understanding of landscapes and seascapes as an integral, vibrant whole. That the true worth and value of protected areas is reflected.We have come a long way from the Stockholm Conference of 1972. We must seize the moment. Follow up on the NY Declaration on Forests. Support climate-smart agriculture and fisheries. Ensure that forests are meaningfully included in future climate change agreements. Support the active and integrated implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We must live up to the Promise of Sydney and implement solutions that cross boundaries and deliver lasting results for parks, people and planet.At Sydney this year, this must be our pledge. There is no plan B for people and the planet. Thank you. Show Less -
Keynote Address on Connecting to Climate Event at the Newseum, by Caroline Anstey, Managing Director, World Bank
Working with others we've launched an Open Data for Resilience Initiative, a global effort working in 25 countries. An example is haitidata.org, which makes risk assessment data produced following... Show More + the 2010 Haiti earthquake available for anyone to download and use.Similarly, Open Data for the Horn of Africa now facilitates open access to geospatial information, data and knowledge sources about the ongoing response to the drought in the Horn of Africa.My point is simple: Farmers, fisher folk, and others around the world are using data and technology everyday to deal with increasing uncertainty brought on by climate change. In Nepal they are using PDAs – computers that fit into the palm of your hand - to collect data regarding changes in food security situations. In Chile, farmers can use low-cost mobiles to receive SMS messages about weather forecasts, market prices and even the latest cultivation practices.In India, fisher folk can use mobile phones to receive messages about weather forecasts, optimal fishing zones, and market prices. And in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, mobile phones are used to collect data for flood forecasting and forwarded to a central early warning system, with the information then sent out via traditional media.The Search for Solutions – Engaging and Empowering YouthSo that's the technology part of the transformational combo. Where do youth come in?You are the ones who can think out of the box. You are the ones who can take convoluted conference communiques and begin to make them real, not in conference rooms where agreements stumble or disappoint, but on the ground, and in local and virtual communities around the world.And your numbers are growing. In Africa alone, 70 percent of the population is under 30. And there are already more than 400 million cell phone users. That transformative combo of technology and youth is not tomorrow's world. It's today.Connect4Climate initiativeThe Connect4Climate initiative – also one of the sponsors of tonight's event – is using the power of partnerships, participation and social media to include the voices of local youth in the global climate change conversation.With a coalition of more than 140 partners and a Facebook community of over a quarter million, Connect4Climate is reaching out to young people – to listen, acknowledge, and respond to their ideas, to help amplify their voice. Across multiple social media channels, Connect4Climate reaches up to 6 million users each week.In the run-up to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Durban last December, Connect4Climate used a combination of social media and a photo and video competition to getAfrican youth aged 13 to 35 to tell their personal climate change stories through photos and videos.340 rural young people in Somalia were trained on climate change and its effects on agriculture, energy, forests, gender, health and water. They were given cameras to document how climate change has affected their lives and these photo stories depicting deforestation, drought, and health issues were entered in the C4C Photo/Video Competition.Youth from all 54 countries on the African continent participated – they want their voices – and their stories – heard. And we need to listen.ConclusionLadies and gentlemen, As the global population heads toward 9 billion by 2050, decisions made today will lock countries into growth patterns that can sustain or destroy our future.We know that economic development during the next two decades cannot mirror the past two: poverty reduction remains urgent, but growth and equity can be pursued without relying on policies and practices that foul the air, the water, and the land. The powerful combination of technology and people power can help us avoid the pitfalls of the past.Over the course of this evening you will hear from others on what they are doing to "swing into action"! It's an impressive catalogue. Enjoy! Show Less -
Transcript: Development Committee Press Conference
MR. MILLS: Well, thank you very much for joining us for this closing press conference. Our participants will each make an opening statement and then we'll take... Show More + your questions. If I can ask everyone to please turn off your mobile devices or put them to vibrate, we would appreciate it. Chairman Belka. MR. BELKA: Thank you. As we are late, I am not going to be very descriptive about the meeting of the Development Committee. You know the agenda. The discussion was very rich, centering around the social safety nets, the private sector involvement in growth initiatives, as well we discussed modernization of the World Bank. However, one thing that is obvious, it took so long because all the delegates took the opportunity of this Development Committee meeting to express gratitude and admiration for the achievements of the outgoing President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick. So, I give you the time to ask questions both to him and Christine Lagarde. Please. MR. MILLS: Very good, thank you. President Zoellick. MR. ZOELLICK: Okay. Well, I'd like to welcome Marek Belka as the new Chair of the Development Committee. I have great respect for what Poland has achieved over the past 20 years and also respect for Marek's service to his country and to Europe. So, I'm delighted that he can share his country's and his own experience with the Development Committee. And I want to thank Christine for a fine stewardship of the IMF at what's clearly a critical time for the world economy. The next meeting of the Development Committee will be in Japan with a new President: Jim Yong Kim. I'm sure he'll do a great job. And I also want to extend my thanks to the members of the Development Committee. I am pleased our shareholders have endorsed the World Bank Group's efforts to boost support for efficient and fiscally sound social safety nets, including conditional cash transfers, public works and school feeding. At international meetings, we hear a lot about global financial safety nets, and we need to focus equal attention on the human safety net. As we know, there are dangers that, when institutions are too big to fail. But let's remember that beyond the talk of financial systems and of regulations and of firewalls, it's people who are too important to fail. The shareholders also want us to continue to assist developing countries with multi-pronged approaches to deal with higher and volatile food prices. I'm pleased our shareholders have support for the moves for more innovative and stronger partnership with middle-income countries – home to 70 percent of the world's poor. A key element of this is the development of infrastructure to boost future growth, including through Public-Private partnerships. Shareholders endorsed the Bank's knowledge agenda, whether it be on safety nets or global public goods or the South-South agenda. The global recovery depends on proper incentives for private financing, and the World Bank Group has been a leader in developing public policies to encourage private sector innovation, investment, and job creation. And our private sector arm, IFC, has done a particularly good job in innovative financing, technical assistance, investments, and mobilizing others. At the end of the day, the best safety net is a job. So, finally, I'm pleased that Ministers endorsed our modernization agenda with its focus on results and openness and accountability. They commended the work to date and called for the momentum to continue. It's more vital than ever that support be continued to help developing countries to navigate the tricky road ahead. So, I'd like to just close with a special word of thanks to the World Bank Group staff, including our talented and diverse Senior Management team. They're superb people who bring ideas and energy and commitment from around the world to our service to our clients and shareholders. It's been a privilege to serve with them and I wish them the very best. Thank you. MR. MILLS: Thank you. Managing Director. MS. LAGARDE: Thank you very much. Very briefly, because this is late in the day and it's a day for Bob, not for me. I will just begin by saying how privileged I have been in the last nine months to work across the road from Bob and I thank him for the learning experience that this has been, including to this very last moment when he was congratulated and highly supported by his constituencies. Just very briefly, what the IMF focuses on in terms of low-income countries, and in particular developing countries in general is, number one, making sure that we have the right tools and the right analysis specific to the low-income countries and this is something that we will continue to work on going forward, because the low-income countries are facing specific risks, if they have done reasonably well, including in the post-crisis period, much more so, actually, than the advanced economies. They have the share of risks, as well, and they have clearly the risk of the external shock coming out of the advanced economies in crisis. They have less room to maneuver because they have used much of the buffers that they had before entering into the crisis. They have less scope to use policies, and they have the longer-term challenges that Bob has been dealing with and addressing during his tenure in the last five years: Make inroads in reducing poverty, generating more inclusive growth, developing infrastructure, and all the rest of it. Now, what are the priority actions for the IMF and the international community? It is moving forward on three priorities. First of all, helping countries manage global uncertainty and volatility more effectively, and to do that we need to have the right tools. We will be this summer looking at all the tools that we use for low-income countries, making sure that they are rightly adjusted to very specific needs. We also need to have the right resources on the right terms, that is, concessional terms, and we've received a boost to that effort this week, but more is going to be needed. Second, we need to push the quality of growth. It needs to be inclusive, it needs to be associated with strong social safety nets, and it needs to be creating jobs and reducing poverty. This topic was discussed yesterday at the Rio+20 breakfast, as well. And third, clearly, we need--and that's more of an internal matter, but it really means quite a lot to the low-income countries, as well. We need to push our governance reform at the IMF and make sure that the quota reform of 2010 and the governance reform actually delivers on the credibility of the institution, it's representativeness, so that it secures the voices of not only the low-income countries but more generally all countries appropriately in accordance with an appropriate share of the global economy. So, those are the directions in which we are working to make sure that we serve our constituencies in that particular respect. MR. MILLS: Thank you very much. Yes, right here in the first row. QUESTION: Thank you. Daniel Jiang with China's Xinhua News Agency. I have a question for President Zoellick and one question for Madam Lagarde. President Zoellick, what is your insight on the process of modernizing multilateralism in a multipolar world you propounded on several years ago, as well as evolving of the Bretton Woods system, and how can the Bank facilitate the process. And for Madam Lagarde, what do you hope to achieve at the Tokyo meeting? Thank you. MR. ZOELLICK: Well, as for your question to me, I think the heart of it is to focus on clients and recognize that the diversity in the developing world requires customizing approaches, but increasingly, we're able to draw from across the developing world and bring experience and insight from some developing countries to other ones. And as an institution, it's important that we recognize that good intentions are not sufficient. So, we have to be rigorous in focusing on results. We also have to be accountable, and to be accountable, it helps to be open. So, I think one of the key aspects of the modernization agenda are the initiatives we've taken in terms of open information, open data, open research. And the more we can expand that not only to the governments around the world but take it all away to communities with the use of different technologies that now enable us to engage social accountability. And one of the initiatives that we took this week in starting an effort for a Global Partnership for Social Accountability, I think is a good example of that. I think on the notion of customizing, one of the topics that came up in today's discussions was the key need for the Bank to continue to adjust to the special needs of middle-income countries. These are the countries where you still find 70 to 75 percent of those living under $2 a day. They have special challenges. And as in the case of China, as you know, we made that adjustment by working with DRC and China on a report to examine the possibilities of future structural reforms as part of China's changing growth model. In other countries, we'll use a combination of knowledge and financing. But I think that will be an ongoing dynamic for the institution. MS. LAGARDE: All right. You asked me what are my expectations or my goals for the Tokyo Annual Meetings. I have four objectives. The first one is to make sure that we have programs in place for some of the Arab transition countries. Second objective is to enhance and tailor to low-income countries our surveillance tools. Third is to get as close as possible, and if possible, the finishing light of the quota and governance reform. And fourth, I want to replenish the Poverty Reduction and Growth coffers. Thank you. MR. MILLS: Yes, Sandrine. QUESTION: Sandrine Rastello, Bloomberg. Mr. Zoellick, I'd like to follow up on the comments you made about China and working together with China, especially in the light of the contribution that China just--or that we expect China to make for IMF resources. As you know, China has become a lender of its own in Africa. I was wondering whether we see the future of the World Bank lending alongside China, and because I don't think we've seen many cases or examples of that so far, and what it would take, especially in terms of safeguards for lending. MR. ZOELLICK: So, Sandrine, you mean lending with China in third countries, or investing in third countries? Yes. Well, I think you're going to see an increase of outward investment, not only from China, but if we're looking over the medium and long term from other emerging market economies. And that's an area where IFC, our private sector arm, is already working to develop partnerships. I think there is also a key aspect in terms of the knowledge and experience transfer. Just to give you an interesting one, Indonesia was bringing some of its experience with community development after difficult situations to Haiti. So, this is much more than a Chinese issue. Brazil--I was here this past week with the head of the Brazilian Development Bank and we're talking about cooperation with the African Development Bank and areas of agriculture development. So, I think it's much broader than the Chinese side. I will say, though, that one other aspect that my colleague Justin Lin has encouraged, and I think has got very interesting prospects is that as China has a population that, over the next five years, there will be more people leaving the labor force than coming in. So, there's a need to move up the value chain, and that means increases in productivity that will warrant additional wages which warrants a higher living standard. Justin estimated the share of about 85 million workers in low-wage manufacturing in China. In all of Africa, South and North, there's about 8 to 10 million. So, some of those jobs--and one of the Party secretaries in Guangdong, Guang Yang has emphasized this. Some of these jobs are likely to move out of China. Now, some of them will move elsewhere in Asia, Southeast Asia, but Justin actually visited a recent operation in Ethiopia where there are plans for substantial numbers, even by the end of this year and over a few years probably manufacturing employment of about 25,000, which would be the same as the number they have in China. Now, to create this, we have to create an environment of ports and infrastructure and roads and energy and other things that China has had as part of its growth model. So, one of the reasons that I've been so adamant about the need to connect with the middle-income countries is that not only do they face development challenges, but I don't want the Bank to be hollowed out. I think that those countries will be very important in the future of the Bank in helping a lot of the poorer countries, because you can already see with trade and investment and even foreign assistance flows. As I noted in one of my recent remarks, last year, a conservative estimate of the traditional foreign assistance from new donors was about 15 billion. That's about 15 percent of the 100 billion that developed donors make. For our IDA process, we not only got contributions but a number of developing countries, including China, prepaid their IDA credit. So, that's one reason we're able to get a record number of 49 billion. So, there are huge opportunities. And what it just underscores is if you think about the issues that Christine was dealing with in terms of growth and macroeconomic stability, if you think about the Rio+20 issues and environment, frankly, it's going to be true in the security area, we want to draw more to bring these countries--not only China, but all the middle-income countries--as effective beneficiaries and contributors to the international multilateral system that the United States and Europe and Japan created in the first 20 years after World War II. MR. MILLS: Thank you. To the gentleman right over there, in the fourth row. QUESTION: This is Asit Mishra from Mint Newspaper, India. This is to Mr. Zoellick. The G-24 countries have expressed concern over falling development finance in the World Bank. So, this is happening at a time when your sister organization is able to garner some 430 billion for a fund. So, how do you see it? Do you see that it's lack of interest in development finance and poverty reduction among the member countries? MR. ZOELLICK: Well, I'll let Christine explain, I think, the benefits of the additional funding or backstop for the IMF, but I think they're designed for the global economy, and that would certainly include developing countries, and obviously this is part of an overall effort that's also done by the Europeans on their own behalf, but the World Bank also had a capital increase, the first one in 22 years. Our equity-to-loan ratio is about 28 percent. So, we've got some significant ability to expand, even with our current equity. I did suggest in the meetings that I think we need to continue to be creative about other ways we could support countries such as India. For example, when I was in India, we talked about a public-private partnerships infrastructure facility. It might draw some government money from the Indian government, from the World Bank Group, but also from other private partners. But to do so, we'll need perhaps to use the IFC approach to those projects as opposed to some of the things with the traditional IBRD approach. As you may know, we increased the single borrowing limit for India, made an exception. I personally think that India's credit should allow us to expand that more. Another tool that we could use and is used in the case of India is that if some of the reserves that countries hold are in the form of IBRD bonds, which actually have better returns than some of the things that they invest in, that allows us to expand the lending. So, that's another tool. And one of the things I briefed the Development Committee about is when, in the autumn of last year where financial markets were particularly in a risky situation, a number of emerging markets came to us and said, "What's most important to us is have access to large amounts of credit, regardless of whether you have to adjust the price or maturity. And we--with our current capital account we could expand that considerably if we do some flexibility and maturity in pricing. So, there's a lot of tools that one can use either from the IFC or the IBRD side. India is also in a transition stage with IDA, and some of the types of things that--where countries made contributions to the Fund are similarly the type of things one might be able to do in an IDA account where you have long-term credits at very modest interest rates. But again, I think they're slightly different. I mean, you want to be careful with the apples and oranges, because they're a backstop facility often done by central banks in the case of the Fund. And so, the idea is to have them there but not necessarily to draw on them. And what we're talking about here are ways that you can actually put investment funds to work on growth strategies. MR. MILLS: Is that fair? Okay. Yes. Lesley. This is the last question. QUESTION: Lesley Wroughton at Reuters. Bob, I wanted to find out from your discussions over the last few days what are the biggest concerns for the low-income countries as far as the spillover effects. I mean, we know the IMF is saying they're not seeing a slowdown in the low-income--in Sub-Saharan Africa, but what are you hearing? From the Finance Ministers' meeting, they were saying that they're pretty afraid of how this could really set itself into the economies. And then, for Ms. Lagarde, as the negotiations get underway for the next governance reforms, including the formula and then moving into--I think it's the 15th review--what do you think are the issues at stake here? I mean, the emerging markets want more say. The Europeans don't want to lose further power. They want to obviously hold onto something. What are the issues that you think that the membership needs to focus on to get the deal done? MR. ZOELLICK: Well, Lesley, as for your question to me, just realize this is a slight difference from your focus, but I think what we've been trying to stress is growth is one of those things that's not a zero sum; and so if you have the emerging markets in developing countries growing, that benefits developed countries and other developing countries. So, two-thirds of global growth has come from developing countries. So, it's in everybody's interest to continue their growth. I shortened my initial remarks, but what I've tried to emphasize in these meetings is that, in addition to the macroeconomic stability, which is very important, it is important for developed and developing countries alike to focus on the structural reforms, the microeconomic reforms that will drive future growth. And indeed, the Chair of the IMFC, Tharman of Singapore, made this point very well, how the fiscal adjustment needs to focus on the foundations for future growth. Now, more particularly, and I think Christine and the IMF staff have made this point: Some of the emerging markets have less space and so they have less fiscal movement and, in some cases, depending on their monetary policy, they have less flexibility if things turn down. A point that Pascal Lamy of the WTO and I have emphasized is we have some worries in the trade finance area, driven in part by the deleveraging of European banks, many of which were very active in trade finance, combined with some of the Basel rules, which have been changed but, in my view, still use as their examples more consumer finance and mortgage than the evidentiary basis for trade finance, but we will help develop the evidentiary basis for that, and that's particularly because for when you have a credit squeeze, it tends to hurt the smaller countries and the smaller banks and the smaller businesses, and those are ones that are obviously important for some of the future development. And particularly, if you're trying to build future growth models, it would probably be the intra-African trade as opposed to the African commodity trade with others. So, that's a second area. Third, it depends on the clients. The fragile states are obviously, by definition, fragile. So, they're worried about anything that could shock the system. There's a worry about oil prices, if you're an oil consumer as opposed to oil producer. And if you're a middle-income country or low-income country, I pick up a very strong interest in the infrastructure agenda, which is why I just touched on it briefly, but I think there's things that we started to do at the Bank, not only with our own investments but with public-private partnerships and really to try to make that a bigger deal flow, and what would be appealing is if we could then combine it with the private capital markets, as we're starting to do with a fund that IFC and Singapore are putting together. So, it varies a lot by market. MS. LAGARDE: Okay. On your question about governance, quota, formula, I take reforms one step at a time. So, my focus at the moment is make sure that we implement the 2010 reform, for the Tokyo Annual Meetings. Then, we have the January 2013 deadline. We've begun the discussions about the formula review of the quota. That will take its course, its time, its discussions. Everybody wants to have a bigger share of the same pie, so there will have to be gives and takes. And the 15th review will be in January 2014. So, we have a little bit of time. MR. MILLS: Very good. Thank you very much. [Whereupon, the press briefing was concluded.] Show Less -
Transcript of Opening Press Conference with World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick
MR. MILLS: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our World Bank Group press conference for the 2012 Spring Meetings. Joining me this morning is the President of the World Bank... Show More + Group, Robert Zoellick, who will have an opening statement and then take some of your questions. If I could please ask everyone when they ask a question to identify themselves and your organization; and once again, I am sure you have been asked, but if we could have our mobile devices switched off or to "vibrate." So, President Zoellick. MR. ZOELLICK: Thank you, Rich. Welcome, and thanks to all of you for coming. This marks my last Spring Meetings as the President of the World Bank Group, so I would like to begin with a few words of thanks to the Ministers who have supported us and worked with us; to our Executive Board, who have labored hard to help our Management team to modernize the important multilateral institution; to the excellent Senior Management team that I have been proud to help build and to lead; and to the World Bank Group staff in Washington and around the world. They are motivated, they are committed, they want to make a difference, they are a tremendous asset, and we have been able to draw the best now from 170 countries. This has been a pretty busy five years, so I suppose my tenure at the World Bank Group has had three phases--a turnaround from a time of some trouble; quickly moving into faster and more flexible, large-scale support for our client countries across the food, fuel and financial crises--in financial terms alone, about a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars; and the start of the modernization of the World Bank Group for the future. That ongoing modernization effort will be a large part of my presentation to the Development Committee later this week and my discussions with our Governors. With the first large recapitalization of the IBRD in over 20 years and two record-breaking IDA replenishments totaling more than $90 billion, I am pleased to turn over a well-resourced Bank with a AAA rating. Yet we always need to think ahead about how to mobilize resources--for the growing interest in IFC and private sector development, for the poorest, and for the changing needs of our middle-income clients, which are still home to three-quarters of those living on under $2 a day. Our Modernization Agenda is driven by our focus on clients, listening to their priorities, as opposed to an old top-down approach, and modernization involves a rigorous focus on results, openness, and accountability. So our initiatives for open information, open data, and open access to knowledge may turn out to be the most important legacy of the past five years. These steps are key to democratizing development, and these steps lay the foundation for expanding social accountability, fighting corruption, and building better governance. Last year, I proposed that the World Bank and others should recognize that investments in civil society and good governance are as vital as investments in roads, factories, and clinics. So I will be pleased to announce later today the formation of a new Global Partnership for Social Accountability that will provide support to civil society organizations in their work on social accountability. Now, much of what you will hear over the next few days will deal with the ongoing shock waves of the financial crisis--issues of macroeconomic stability, fiscal and monetary policies. That is certainly important, but it is not enough. Countries, both developing and developed, need to focus on the structural reforms that will be the drivers of future growth; otherwise, the world will keep stumbling along. The World Bank Group will be emphasizing the structural growth agenda. Structural reforms and changing growth models fit with our recent major reports such as the China 2030 Report and the Golden Growth Report that looked at Europe. You will also encounter structural growth in our priorities for infrastructure, especially public-private partnerships; social safety nets, to protect human capital in a volatile and uncertain world; gender, so that countries can gain growth opportunities from empowering all of their people; and financial inclusion, including at these Meetings, a first-of-its-kind report on measurement to access financial services that will show that three-quarters of the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day are shut out of access to banking. Developing countries have provided two-thirds of global growth over the past five years. These are no longer charity cases; they are vital to the world economy. But of course, they face huge challenges, too. So it is the World Bank Group's aim to keep focusing the world's economic leaders on growth--not just stability; on human safety nets--not just financial safety nets; and on modernizing multilateralism so that all 188 of our shareholders can work together for their common interest. Finally, I had an opportunity to talk to Jim Kim after his selection as my successor. We will have a chance to meet shortly after the Spring Meetings on the transition process. I think he will do a great job, and I wish him and all others associated with the World Bank Group every success. I am pleased to take your questions. MR. MILLS: Yes, Sudeep? QUESTION: Sudeep Reddy with the Wall Street Journal. I was hoping you could address the European crisis from two angles. One, you previously noted that European countries had bought a lot of time with liquidity measures. I am curious what you think about how they have used that time and what they need to do next; and more broadly with emerging market countries, how are they faring with the shock waves from Europe, and is there anything in particular they should be doing now given the potential for another round with Spain? MR. ZOELLICK: Well, on the first one, I think the euro zone in particular and the European Union is going to be walking a very fine line. First, as you noted, with the anxieties late last year, I think the ECB's extraordinary actions were appropriate, but I think some misled themselves because they only bought time, and the time has to be used. I think that, as the IMF has pointed out, on the one hand, the future of the euro zone depends on actions of individual countries, particularly the steps they take for fiscal consolidation and, as I have emphasized, the steps they need to take for structural reforms and future growth. It is very difficult to take those steps in a no-growth environment, so it has to be balanced with steps that might be able to support demand and longer-term changes of growth. So this week, I tried to make some suggestions on the supply side and ways in which the single market could also further deepen integration to support growth. Now, again, as the Fund has pointed out, the banking system also remains under significant stress, and at the one hand, you need the banks to build their capital; on the other hand, what we have seen is that if the banks build their equity ratios by shrinking, as they by and large have been doing, that is going to put a stress on credit contraction and undermine the basis of growth. So I think the debate understandably reflects the fact of trying to balance these issues, but I think we are now in a phase where, after the ECB provided very attractive financial resources to a number of the banks to be able to buy government debt, as we have seen in various newspapers--I think your own today, as I saw one story--they are about at the end of that point and limit. So I think further actions are going to be called for, and the point I keep emphasizing, wherever it is around the world, is not just to focus on the austerity and macroeconomic stability measures, but you need to do this in a context of growth, in part because we have to face the political economy issues. So, as I have emphasized, the real countries that are critical because of size at this point are Italy and Spain. You have governments that are taking strong actions. It would certainly help if they got some support from some of the types of things that I and others have talked about so as to help with growth and the politics of reform. As for your second question, the deleveraging process in European financial institutions has certainly begun. I tend to agree with I think the IMF report and others that said that there is more to go. We have seen the effects, differential effects, around the world. I just came from East and South Asia. You have definitely had a pull-back in some of the project lending and sale of some of the assets in East Asia. A number of the Asian banks have stepped in, so it has not really had a significant contractionary effect. Starting late last year, I again worked by my friends at the EBRD and EIB and EC to try to reactivate the Vienna Agenda because I have been most concerned about the Southeastern European and the Balkan countries. And there, working with the banks, we are seeing the contraction. So far it has been orderly, but it is a good example of trying to get ahead of the curb, Sudeep. I was talking about this late last year, and people did not yet see the numbers, and as you saw the first quarter with the BIS numbers, you started to see this contraction. And I was actually pleased--through the IBRD, we were able to expand our commitment over the next couple years by about $4 billion, IFC another $2 billion, so our total, I think, is about $27 billion. I think that is an example of the types of things you need to do, frankly, even in the months ahead to get ahead of some of these problems. North Africa has clearly been affected by this, and this is again the political implications, because for a number of the North African countries, Europe is a very important export market, so it is important. I was with the Tunisian Finance Minister yesterday, and I am going to meet them again--as they undertake these difficult reforms, they need to get support from us and others along the way. And an area that Pascal Lamy of the WTO and I have been watching particularly closely is trade finance. A lot of the European banks were big players in trade finance, particularly the French banks, so you are seeing some shrinkage of that. In the areas, what I am most concerned about--and by the way, this is where the new capital rules from Basel III are going to have to be watched very closely; the Basel Committee took some steps to alleviate some of the changes that they had put in, overly stringent, in my view, but now we are trying to gather some data with the WTO and others to make a stronger case for easing some of the strictures they have--because what I am most worried about is a place like Sub-Saharan Africa, where I suspect that the exporters of major commodities to the U.S. and Europe will still get trade finance, but if you are a small country, if you are a small bank, if you are a small client, if it is intra-African trade--which should be the future of growth--those are likely to get squeezed. So, again, what I try to do in these meetings, Sudeep, with my G20 colleagues, because we see all these marketplaces, is to try to anticipate some of those issues, and those are some of the ones that I am focusing on. And then, the last one, of course, which is implicit in your question, is that we are not out of this mess yet, so if you have a more seismic event because of failures of management, that is going to hit everybody hard. It is still a fragile economy, as we and the IMF have pointed out. MR. MILLS: Yes, the woman in the second row, please. QUESTION: Yes, Antonella Ciancio from Reuters. We would like to know how concerned are you with Argentina's move to nationalize the country's leading oil company, and if this somehow threatens to further isolate the country. Thank you. MR. ZOELLICK: Well, I think it is a mistake, and I think it is a symptom that we have to watch out for of, under economic pressure, whether countries will move to more national, autarchic policies, respond more to populism, respond more to protectionism. So I think it was the wrong thing to do. MR. MILLS: Thank you. Yes, Howard? QUESTION: Hi, Bob, and thank you. Howard Schneider with The Washington Post. On the Arab Spring, I was just curious--Madame Lagarde laid out what is basically now a stalemate between the IMF and Egypt over support there, and I was wondering from your perspective, to what degree you think political uncertainty in those countries is holding up the type of support you feel needs to come from the outside to get their economies back on track. And then, secondly, briefly, what is your advice to Kim on transition? What are the mechanics of that going to look like, and what are you going to be able to do to help him in the door? MR. ZOELLICK: Well, on the first one, Howard, it varies a lot by country. So let's take Tunisia, which I referenced with Sudeep. You know, Tunisia has gone through an election process. They have an Islamic-based government. The government seems to be stressing the continuation of the policies that the prior interim government focused on, and those are policies we are trying to do everything we can to support--not just basic financing, but policies of inclusion, because you have had sort of a growth model that didn't pay enough attention to people in the west and central part of the country--trying to focus on some of the youth unemployment issue, and--very nicely with the agenda we are setting on openness and social accountability--when we did a Development Policy Loan, they accompanied it with a series of changes to try to open up their process. And I think it is not only good politics, it is good economics, obviously, to have the society feel that they are engaged in the process. But the Tunisian economy is still under significant stress; it has lost tourism; it has lost some of the effects of exports to Europe. So IFC, our private sector team, has also been doing investments in there. So, in the case of Tunisia, this is not going to be done overnight. They are going to face a tough year. But I think it is in everybody's interest to try to support them if the government stays on the current path, because again, looking at this from a bit of an economic history point of view, I think the North African transformation is going to take a while, but what I saw happen in East Asia and elsewhere is that countries that undertook the reforms become models for others. Morocco has had a fast-paced evolution as opposed to revolution. They are making a series of reforms, so we are trying to support them, again, on the openness side, the investment side, the private sector side. We are trying to support Jordan. Jordan is going through a combination of political and economic reform. In a country like Libya, they have the resources. There, we have been trying to work with some partners in a difficult security environment to help create the capacity for basic financial management and other activities. So, the big one obviously is Egypt, which you referred to, and here, as I suspect from what you have said that Christine mentioned, they not only face an economic and financial challenge, but they are in the process of a political transition. And I understand that there will be a need to be able to base the legitimacy of whatever economic relationships they have on the Fund and the Bank with the people who will be exercising power under the new Constitutional arrangement. So I think that that does slow up the process. Life is full of twists and turns. That is kind of the facts of life and the reality. There are things that I think the interim government can do to create a better environment for this. We have kept doing investment lending, and we have tried to focus some of the investment lending in Egypt on some of the sectors in need, but the bigger policy loans that we would do would depend on the macroeconomic issues that the IMF is addressing; and frankly--at least it has been my guidance--they will also be based on some of the openness and social accountability issues that we have seen in Tunisia and other countries. And that, I think--that is also important because I think you are going to be going through a political transition process, and the more open it is, then, whoever is elected in this year or next year or others I think will have a better sense of engagement with the economic changes in Egypt and the relationships with the World Bank. So this is one of the things, I think--we have also had to learn lessons from the Arab Spring. Economic growth alone is not enough. It has to be inclusive. And frankly, the more we can emphasize the things I have been talking about, about openness and social accountability, I think that is the future direction of the Bank as well as these countries. You asked a second one--oh, on Dr. Kim. Well, I have been through a lot of transitions in my life, so I have some experience with them. We tried to centralize a team to avoid the standard problem of the 500-page briefing book by focusing on some of the issues that will come up first. I think these Spring Meetings are timely because we will get a sense from the Governors and the Board about some of the issues that would be of nature to be a continuation--some of the things that I have talked about in this Modernization Agenda which has both internal and external aspects. And beyond that, I always think that as you are turning something over, you have to actually have some degrees of restraint. You know, he will be the person in charge. I happen to believe that change is good for institutions as well as me, and it is good to have a fresh person come in. So we will try to explain where we think some of the issues are. He certainly has a lot of perspectives, I am certain, from the tour that he took around the world and the discussion with the Board. So I am certain that by the time he takes office, he will have a pretty good feel for the challenges ahead. MR. MILLS: Yes, right over there, to the gentleman with his hand up--no, to the gentleman. Thank you. QUESTION: Larry Elliott, of The Guardian. In your five years at the Bank, what do you consider to be your biggest success, and what do you consider to be your biggest failure? MR. ZOELLICK: Can I hold on the second one? [Laughter.] MR. ZOELLICK: Well, I tried, Larry, briefly, in the opening, sort of anticipating this question, to say that in my own mind, I have seen these three phases. So, first, when I came into the Bank, as for those of you who have covered it, it was a tumultuous period. And so I had the challenge of a leader trying to turn around an institution. And to the credit of the institution, the best way to get out of some of the internal strife was to focus people on the mission--that is why people came to the Bank--and we were able to do that relatively quickly. We had some complicated issues to deal with in governance and anti-corruption and others where Paul Volcker and others helped. Second, before too long, we had the food and fuel crisis start to hit us in late 2007, so I am particularly pleased that sort of a combination of my international experience and kind of reading what was happening in the market, we moved quite quickly, and I think if you talked to people in the food security community, they felt that the Bank was more agile than it might have been in the past, but--and in addition, we start to see this as an opportunity to invest in agriculture going into the future. And then, as I have mentioned, in the financial crisis, doing about a quarter-trillion dollars of support is not only important financially, but it was important to how we designed a lot of it. So the fact that in trade finance, Lars and the IFC team leveraged our financing to keep a lot of banks in the market. I mentioned the Vienna Initiative. In Indonesia, we organized with the Asian Development Bank, the Australians and Japanese, a backstop proposal. So part of my point here is that it is not just financing; we need to be able to leverage it and kind of innovate it in innovative ways, and I think we were able to do that, including some things that I hope will become seeds of very important future growth, like this Asset Management Company which is a subsidiary of IFC, where we are now tapping the sovereign funds and pension funds, and we already have $4 billion of money that the Bank would have never seen going into African equity markets. So it is not only the response in financial terms, but it is also the innovation. And then, as part of that, it goes to this modernization phase which I think has just been begun, and there, as I mentioned briefly in my remarks--and here, I credit some of my team, Caroline Anstey, Sanjay Pradhan--together, we decided this focus on really opening up the Bank as an institution was key to not only development, but frankly, having a healthier Bank. And so an Open Information policy, it is the first among multilaterals, based on an Indian and U.S. Freedom of Information Act--this Open Data Initiative is just going to--I have already seen it--it is going to drive a whole new way of doing policy, because we are making this accessible with mobile phone technology in any country around the world, so we are going to have a much more interactive process. And just to connect this to a little bit of the transition debate, Larry, it was interesting that--and I am not saying this was any of the three candidates--but some others were saying: Oh, the Bank is doing too many things. It must focus on these three things. In my view, that was a mistake that elitist economists made 20 years ago, where they said "We know what developing countries need." And maybe it is because of my private and policy background--my approach has been fundamentally different. It says let's focus on the client; let's hear what the client needs, and then let's take the innovation from the world and apply it so, and then, in the process, we can learn with the client through an open process about how to do it better. So I think--I am sure you have encountered this with The Guardian, but I have encountered it at university campuses – is that you know, the Bank is still a big, multilateral, Washington-based institution, but the more you open up an institution, it is the best antidote to conspiracy theories and better policy. Pardon? QUESTION: [Inaudible; no microphone.] MR. ZOELLICK: Well, I'll let you be the judge of the failures; how about that? [Laughter.] MR. MILLS: Yes--thank you--to the gentleman right here. QUESTION: Thank you. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde just said that low-income countries have to deal with lower aid resources. I would like you to elaborate a little bit more specifically on Latin America, if you have figures. And I would also like to know if the World Bank is concerned about the rise of protest movements and more social demands in different countries, even the Occupy Wall Street movement here in the United States, in Europe, and all this situation. MR. ZOELLICK: Well, on the first one, I guess the way I would approach the concerns for low-income is not just in certain countries but across countries, because one thing a lot of people have lost sight of is that two-thirds of the people living on under $2 a day are in so-called middle-income countries. I was just in India, where I met with women with a Self-Employed Women's Association. These are extremely poor women. So one of the challenges for the Bank is getting people to recognize that you are going to need to deal with poor people in a variety of different countries. Now, foreign assistance is clearly a piece of that, and it's under stress. By and large, if you look at the OECD numbers, the countries have sort of generally kept up what they were doing. But I guess my suggestion on that goes to some of the things we have said in modernization. Take a country like the United Kingdom, which has maintained its effort to reach the 0.7 percent of GDP under difficult budget circumstances. It is a heroic effort. They, the Australians, Canadians, and others have done good work on this. But they need to show value for money, so this goes right back to the Results Agenda. And this is where some of the things we are trying to do to have evidence-based learning about what works and doesn't work--I think it is something Dr. Kim is interested in--this will be very important for the future. But another point of it is, one reason that it is important to draw the middle-income countries into the multilateral institutions is about a conservative estimate of the foreign assistance from the emerging borrowers, or the emerging countries, was about $15 billion last year. That's about 15 percent of the total, and it is probably a conservative estimate. And recognize, part of my view is you've got different sources of funds. You are also going to have investment funds. So the rise of China and the increase in commodity prices has probably been one of the best things for Latin America. The challenge, however, will be for Latin America to use that--and that is one of the things I will be talking about with the Governors--as a broader basis for more inclusive growth. So I tend to--I gave a speech last year where I talked about "Moving Beyond Aid," and the idea was not that we can overcome that today, but we need to move beyond kind of a charity model to the notion of investing in human capital, in infrastructure, with developed and developed countries, and in some ways, the best test is Sudeep's opening question--what are people most worried about today--Europe. And if two-thirds of the global growth comes from developing countries, we have to change people's mindsets. These are potential poles of growth. I just met yesterday with the African Governors. What are they interested in? Energy. Infrastructure. Regional integration. So those are the elements that we need to focus on. And I guess the last point on the poorest--the world is an unpredictable place. We are not going to change that. So people who believe they can control this price or that price, I wish them--well, I don't wish them good luck--but anyway, it is not going to work. What we should be doing, however, is making sure that every country has an effective social safety net, and we had a function on this yesterday, because we have learned a lot from developing countries about how to do this in a cost-effective way. The Bolsa Familia Program in Brazil, the Oportunidades in Mexicos--these are done for half of one percent of GDP. Trust me, if the U.S. Congress could get their entitlement programs down to any remote degree of that, they would be pretty happy; and yet they cover 15 to 20 percent of the people, and they provide a ladder up. So, and Ethiopia has a different model. So we at the Bank have helped extend conditional cash transfer programs to about 40 other countries. So we had the Philippines Secretary here yesterday, and they have expanded to 3 million families. So to me, the message for aid is not just the aid number but its effectiveness, and for the poorest, let's focus on basic safety nets for every country to deal with the volatility and uncertainty, because the other lesson we learned is if you wait until the crisis, it is too late. MR. MILLS: Okay. I think we have time for one more question. Yes, we'll go to the gentleman in the back, please. QUESTION: Hi. I am Bernard Busuulwa from Uganda. Now, Robert, I would like to know--you talked about the pending problems with trade finance among African exporters. I would like to know what is your first advice to central bankers in Africa who are terribly challenged in getting their banks to increase access for the exporter, and pro-poor growth in cross-border trade, especially at a time when their economies are also feeling the heat of the euro zone stress and weakness in the American economy. MR. ZOELLICK: Well, my first advice is not necessarily to the African central bankers; it is to some of, the Basel and developed world central bankers that, as they develop these rules, build back in feedback loops, because as sure as we are sitting here, they are going to find ways that over-constrict--it is the way the pendulum works--and I am most concerned about the effect of over-constriction on poor countries and developing countries. And in the area of trade finance--something that Lamy and I have talked about--part of the problem is they put in capital requirements and they don't have very good evidence, but frankly, the evidence we have is that it is a pretty short-term loan, and, it's a pretty - it tends to get repaid. So my first start is with the developed world. But secondly--again, I would not focus so much on the central bankers--there is a huge opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa to remove border barriers, to create more integrated markets. So--you are from East Africa--I visited a one-stop border place that we helped open up--I think it was actually Kenya and Uganda--and it had gone from two days for goods transporting to two hours. And this does not require huge sums of money. We now have the systems. We have worked with some private sector firms to develop the software on this. And it means sort of systematizing the process. Then, if we can combine that with infrastructure development so, whether it is roads or railroads or ports or electricity, to be able to strengthen it. So you are right--at least, I think you are right--by saying that subregional integration--and I would focus on sub-regions--East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, Central Africa--is the way to really start to drive a potential for growth. And I just keep coming back to this, because when I read most of the press accounts of these meetings, everything is focusing on the macroeconomic/fiscal/monetary. Fine. I am not denying that. But you are not going to ever deal with this problems unless you create sources of growth, and there are sources of growth in Africa, and I see it with private sector firms being interested in it, but Africans have to create the right enabling environment. MR. MILLS: Very good. Thank you very much. Show Less -
A recipe for good health: safe water and sanitation
On the eve of World Water Day (March 22), there is some good public health news that is unrelated to medical care for the "sick," but to a critical investment that makes people healthier and more productive,... Show More + and promises a higher quality of life, particularly among the poor.The 2012 UNICEF/World Health Organization report, Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation, says that at the end of 2010, 89% of the world's population, or 6.1 billion people, had access to improved drinking water. This means that the related Millennium Development Goal (MDG) has been met well ahead of the 2015 deadline. The report also predicts that by 2015, 92% of people will have access to better drinking water.But, the not-so-good news is that only 63% of the world has improved sanitation access, a figure projected to increase only to 67% by 2015, well below the 75% MDG aim. Currently 2.5 billion people lack improved sanitation. The report also highlights the fact that the global figures mask big disparities between regions and countries, and within countries (e.g., only 61% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to safe water).Should this news matter to public health types like me who work with health systems, who are not sanitary engineers? The answer is a definite yes, since improving water and sanitation systems is a necessary complement to primary health care services and targeted nutrition interventions for reducing deaths and ill health in rural and urban slums where the poor concentrate. Unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation together contribute to about 88% of deaths from diarrheal diseases, or more than 1.5 million of the 1.9 million children under age 5 who perish from diarrhea each year. This amounts to close to 20% of all under-5 deaths and means that more than 5,000 children are dying every day as a result of diarrheal diseases.The dilemma for the international community is simple: Are we going to wait to treat sick children in newly renovated health clinics offering drug therapy and keeping them in costly hospital beds, or should we channel scare resources to building sustainable safe water and sanitation systems that prevent kids from getting sick?Working in rural areas high in the Andes of my native Ecuador, I saw how improved access to safe water and sanitation alone could significantly reduce diarrhea-related morbidity combined with hygiene awareness and the use of latrines, safe disposal of feces, and hand washing. And regular vaccines and basic health checkups and proper nutrition, particularly to deal with children's Iron, Iodine, and Vitamin A deficiencies, help eliminate much of the infectious diseases burden.While we should rejoice about the good news on World Water Day 2012, we also should heed the example of John Snow, one of the pillars of modern public health, who in the mid-1800s successfully demonstrated that the removal of pumps that supplied contaminated water controlled the cholera epidemics that were common in London at the time. By applying our public health knowledge about how infectious diseases are diffused and spread within communities, we could make a major and lasting impact by working together with our water and sanitation colleagues to tackle the source of these diseases, rather than just their symptoms. Show Less -
The Economist World Oceans Summit: "A New S-O-S: Save Our Seas"
"A New S-O-S: Save Our Seas"IntroductionLadies and gentlemen,Oceans are the lifeblood of our world.They flow over more than 70 percent of our planet, and hold about 97 percent of its water. They... Show More + absorb heat and carbon dioxide, generate oxygen, and shape the world's weather patterns. They provide about 15 percent of the animal protein for the world's population.The air that we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. Whether we live inland or on coastlines, each one of us relies on healthy oceans. So I'm particularly pleased to have this opportunity today to discuss the need for coordinated global action to restore the oceans to health.I'd like to thank The Economist for convening this Summit, and John Micklethwait for chairing today's session. And I'd especially like to thank all of you for your commitment to this issue.Addressing Oceans: Challenges and OpportunitiesOver centuries, we thought that oceans were so vast, so deep, that we could take from them whatever we chose, and could dump whatever we chose into them. Today, we know that isn't true. The world's oceans are in danger.Fish stocks are crashing from overexploitation. Rising pollution is flowing into the oceans from land, air, and rivers, choking plant and animal life. Ocean habitats are disappearing – some with alarming rapidity – as coastal cities boom. A changing climate has brought warmer oceans, higher sea levels, and ocean acidification.Oceans are the natural capital of all countries, developed and developing; all countries suffer from degradation of these ecosystems. There are close connections between land and water, human and ocean health, sustainable management and renewable benefits.Yet when we devalue our natural capital, it is often the poor who feel the greatest harm. Oceans provide a wealth of goods and services that make a tremendous contribution to overcoming poverty, creating opportunity, and spurring economic growth.Let's look at just one dimension of the oceans: fish and seafood.One billion people in developing countries depend upon fish and seafood for their primary source of protein. Over half a billion people in developing countries depend on fishing as a livelihood. Half are women.For developing countries, including many island and coastal nations, fish represent the single most traded food product, valued at $25 billion a year. For many Pacific Island countries, fish make up 80 percent of total exports.For some countries, the fishing trade is absolutely critical for their growth. In Sierra Leone, fisheries account for as much as 10 percent of GDP; for the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, it's 53 percent. In Senegal, fishing creates about 600,000 jobs and employs 17 percent of the labor force.Fishing licenses can be a critical income source. In Guinea Bissau, the annual fishing license sold to the EU at one point represented close to 50 percent of government revenues. When catches shrink, or a country is unable to keep other countries from fishing its seas, license prices fall too.The living ocean is also home to millions of animal and plant species, important to maintaining ecosystem health – and to a large global industry in recreation and ecotourism. In the Seychelles, for example, a country consisting of 115 islands, tourism accounts for 25 percent of GDP. Coral reef tourism alone has an estimated economic value of more than $20 billion a year. More livelihoods stem from ocean research.Around the world, we estimate that about 350 million jobs are linked to the oceans through fishing, aquaculture, coastal and marine tourism, and research.Ocean ecosystems – mangroves, bogs, reefs, wetlands, and barrier islands – are becoming more important for protecting increasingly populous coastal areas against natural hazards. Some 275 million people live in coastal economies dependent on coral reefs, for example – and they are among the most vulnerable to climate change and extreme events.For hundreds of millions of people around the world, oceans are essential for providing food, jobs, livelihoods, and protection.Oceans are the home of an under-recognized and under-appreciated "blue economy." At a time when the world is looking for sources of growth, there is huge potential for "blue growth" – wisely preserving and investing in the value of ocean ecosystems to fight poverty and improve lives.But oceans aren't living up to their potential.Rebuilding Oceans: What Will It Take?Why not?There is already a wealth of valuable knowledge and experience about how to restore our oceans – as well as considerable resources devoted to the challenge.NGOs invest about $100 million a year in oceans. Organizations such as Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund have done a tremendous job in bringing the problems facing oceans to public attention, while also showing the way to innovative solutions with marine protected areas and projects within countries to deal with pollution or rebuilding fish stocks.The Global Environment Facility has invested as much as $600 million in healthy oceans, funding coastal and marine projects that are addressing issues ranging from pollution reduction to innovative approaches to conservation management.The UN group has worked for many years on oceans management – with agencies such as the FAO playing a crucial role in measuring the health of fish stocks, for example. The World Bank Group is investing $1.6 billion in coastal zone management, fisheries, and marine protected areas.NOAA and other national scientific bodies have advanced marine science and ocean planning.Many private companies are increasingly committed to establishing sustainable supplies of seafood.But the scale of the challenge is such that these singular efforts are simply not enough.We need a new S-O-S: Save Our Seas.To make our oceans healthy and productive again, we need greater cooperative and integrated action around the globe, so that our efforts add up to more than the sum of their parts.So today, I want to propose a new approach – an unprecedented Global Partnership for Oceans.This Partnership will bring together countries, scientific centers, NGOs, international organizations, foundations, and the private sector to pool knowledge, experience, expertise, and investment around a set of agreed upon goals.These goals can sharpen our focus, encourage common and reinforcing efforts, and compel us to measure performance. Together, we will build on the excellent work already being done to address the threats to oceans, identify workable solutions, and scale them. We can also mobilize financing where there are gaps.I've seen in other areas that the World Bank Group is fortunately positioned to catalyze and help organize such a global partnership effort. Our relationships with both client governments and all shareholder supporters – based on common interests in development, growth, and sharing experiences in solving problems – offers us a valuable entry point.We can coordinate financing and help with the global advocacy effort, using our own access to policymakers and ministers of finance, in particular, to highlight the oceans agenda, raise interest in investment, and communicate results.We will also provide new funding, as well as leverage our existing portfolios in fisheries, coastal zone management, marine protected areas, ports, urban development, agriculture, and community development, backed by our knowledge platform.We are asking as many organizations as possible to join this initiative. And I am delighted to announce that the response has been extremely positive.The World Bank already has a firm track record working on this topic with the Small Island Developing States, which face unique development issues, as well as large coastal countries such as Indonesia and India. Some of these countries have deep experience in protecting oceans. President Tong of Kiribati, for example, has been a leader in sustainable management of coral reefs and associated ecosystems. Brazil is doing innovative work with the private sector and civil society in scaling up marine protected areas. I expect these leaders and others to play key roles in the Partnership.We are also in discussions with Australia, Monaco, New Zealand, and Norway about working with us on the Partnership.Conservation International, the National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the World Wildlife Fund, and Rare Conservation are prepared to add their expertise, great capacity for innovation, and advocacy. Together, we're making strides on biodiversity, so we are excited to work with them to Save Our Seas.The Global Environment Facility, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, the UN Development Program, UN Environment Program, and Food and Agriculture Organization are committed to working with the Partnership.The Prince of Wales Charities and GRID-Arendal of Norway are interested in joining forces.Finally, but critical to our success, private sector actors – Darden Restaurants, the International Sustainable Seafood Foundation, the World Ocean Council, and the National Fisheries Institute – are engaged.We hope that this is only the beginning of the list of organizations and companies that will join this partnership – and will join in showing effectiveness to achieve results.First StepsAs a starting point, the Global Partnership for Oceans is committed to mobilizing at least $300 million in catalytic finance. These are funds that would be used for technical assistance to support key governance reforms that can create the necessary incentives for long-term investment in oceans, as well as to help operate marine protected areas, and monitor and communicate lessons learned. Working with governments, the scientific community, civil society organizations, and the private sector, we aim to leverage as much as $1.2 billion to support healthy and sustainable oceans. This would total $1.5 billion in new commitments over five years.Goodwill and even good partners are not enough.We need a common approach and a set of common goals.Last September, the World Bank convened a roundtable to share ideas and come up with solutions for how to bring oceans back to health. We brought together representatives from key countries, NGOs, and private sector players, and asked them "what will it take to restore the oceans?" The answers focused on three key areas:First, countries need help making better decisions about oceans. This change starts with understanding the full value of the ocean's wealth and ecosystem services – because, whatever the resource, it is impossible to evolve a plan to manage and grow the resource without knowing its value. Simply put, we cannot manage what we cannot measure. The Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services initiative, or WAVES, is already helping developing countries to integrate the economic benefits that ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and coral reefs provide into national accounting systems. We need to extend these tools to all ocean ecosystems.To make better decisions, countries also need to reform policies. Better policies and governance can create incentives – for both the public and private sectors – to reduce threats to ocean ecosystems, and to invest in long-term protection and management of critical coastal and ocean habitats. Taxes and subsidies, for example, need to be directed with an eye toward incentives and disincentives; certification processes can be simplified; regulatory institutions and national systems for enforcing rights-based fishing can be strengthened.Second, there are numerous areas where greater investment can make a real difference. When a coastline is managed, better decisions are made about development. When marine areas are protected, critical ecosystem services can recover and thrive, enhancing the ocean in neighboring spaces as well.The National Geographic has found that in the Solomon Islands and Kenya, when marine protected reserves were established, the income of local fishermen doubled in five to seven years. Public investments in infrastructure, research, and technology can reduce land-based pollution. We need to show the possible returns from these investments, make them, and continue to assess performance.Third, we need broader cooperation between the public and private sectors. One of the striking elements in all our consultations was that we heard almost exactly the same messages from private and public organizations. We've seen in other areas of development and conservation that building partnerships – sharing experience and ideas – with private and public parties to address problems in practical ways helps build a broader response from the ground – and water – up. With these areas of focus in mind, I'd like to propose targets for what we should achieve in the next ten years:We should rebuild at least half the world's fish stocks identified as depleted: About 85 percent of ocean fisheries are fully exploited, over-exploited, or depleted. This includes most of the stocks of the top ten fish species, or about 30 percent of the world's marine capture fisheries production. There's no room for further expansion – we need to start rebuilding.We should increase the annual net benefits of fisheries to between $20 and $30 billion. We estimate that global fisheries currently run a net economic loss of about $5 billion per year. We need to turn this around, by allocating and enforcing the rights of fisheries and reforming subsidies.We should more than double the area covered by marine protected areas. Currently, less than 2 percent of the ocean's surface is protected – compared to around 12 percent of land. Let's increase this to 5 percent We will need to work with governments and stakeholders to identify and establish sound marine protected areas where they can contribute direct economic benefits. The scale will depend on the context: for example, in some areas, we might work with communities to introduce small-scale protected areas on local coral reef systems, while in others we may work with national governments to identify and protect large areas as part of a wider strategy for the country's ocean ecosystems. We would build on the idea of supporting networks of marine protected areas, such as island chains in the Pacific. A number of these networks already exist, but have yet to be fully implemented. And we should increase sustainable aquaculture to provide two thirds of the world's fish. Today, that figure is about 50 percent, but there are serious concerns over disease management, feed use, and introduction of non-native species. We need to do much better, not only to help secure a reliable source of food, but also to take the pressure off of ocean fish stocks. This is an ambitious list. But these targets are achievable. They are founded on sound scientific assessment, extrapolated from World Bank project experience.There is much more to do. But meeting these goals will take significant steps toward reversing the dangerous, centuries-old deterioration of ocean and coastal ecosystems.This is a critical start.ConclusionEconomists now commonly reference our interdependent world, in which developed and developing countries, rich and poor, are linked – by economics, trade, migration, climate change. Mariners know we are also linked by oceans. But we've taken those oceans for granted. Our predecessors appreciated Neptune's bounty, respected Neptune's power, and were wary of Neptune's wrath.We should recall their wisdom, but add to it our insights from science, economics, and governance.Restoring our oceans to good health is an investment in all our future.We hope that today's event – and our new and expanded partnership – will help us to enlist supporters and donors who are ready to take on this challenge on a global scale. The World Bank will be convening a first meeting of the Global Partnership for Oceans in Washington, DC this April. I invite all of you to attend.Send out the S-O-S: We need to Save Our Seas.Thank you. Show Less -
World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick's Q&A Session at The Economist World Oceans Summit
MICKLETHWAIT: Thank you Bob. A somewhat churlish question, you might say, particularly from a man who's just said that he'll raise 1.5 billion for the oceans. What some people are bound to ask is, why... Show More + do we need a new partnership for the oceans? You've got the UN, you've got a variety of different groups already involved. Why this extra level?ZOELLICK: I think the good news is - I commented in my remarks early on - is that there have been tremendous contributions from a wide variety of players, but the facts don't lie. The statistics are we're not doing enough, we're not accomplishing enough and the oceans continue to get sick and die.So as we started this dialogue with partners - and I'll first acknowledge many of them had much more experience than I would've had in this area - but I've seen this in other fields of biodiversity. We started to find that there was a commonality - a recognition that in some case the knowledge and experience, for example, of setting up governance or rights-based fishing hadn't expanded to other areas. In some cases - and I've worked with governments all my life on this - people aren't aware that what they're developing in a coastal zone is one development project could have huge effects on the oceans. They may not know about the nitrogen that's going to supposedly help their agriculture fertilizer system but ends up polluting the oceans.So part of the role here is to be catalytic in trying to get a greater focus on financial resources, knowledge resources, and as is often the case when you bring in developing countries in this - and here particularly you've got a lot of small island states - and see that the net gain from some particular investments could be much larger, then what we've seen in areas as diverse as tigers to other areas of economic development, you have to measure it.You have to be - goodwill is not enough. So again, in the time that I've tried to add some focus to this, I've had a chance to meet - I know many of the people in the room - and there's some fascinating ideas out there. We just have to get them out and we have to drive them forward.MICKLETHWAIT: Do you think the data's sufficient? You just mentioned the numbers. We've had a number of people here make the comment that we know more about the far side of the moon than we do about the oceans. Is that a problem from your point of view?ZOELLICK: Well you've got people here who are more expert. From what I've been able to see, there is a lack of information but I remember talking - I think this was a conversation with Peter Seligmann of Conservation International – what is being developed quite quickly, and we've seen this in other areas, in terms of mapping oceans, mapping particular areas, but then seeing their interconnection could be hugely beneficial. This again is something I've seen in other areas of development. If we can work together to develop a knowledge platform and make it easier for all participants; private companies, island governments, large states; to be able to tap into that, again, I think we can maximize the individual investments.MICHKELWAIT: One thing which has run right the way through this conference is I suppose the idea of whether you can make more money out of the seas, with quite a lot of people worried about the devastation, the economic spoliation, I suppose, of the seas. Yet you very plainly are coming at it from the point of view that this is a route to economic growth. Can you just say a little bit more about that?ZOELLICK: Well, there's some analogies actually - energy efficiency. The first step is to stop doing dumb things. So you've got subsidies that are used for fisheries that are net negatives to the system, so when I was referring to the negative $5 billion loss, the fisheries [that we want] are trying to move to $20 billion to $30 billion a year gain. That's probably because money is misused.So then I was reading an account coming from some of the Prince of Wales charities where some fisheries, people have been able to see, once they crash, once they start to rebuild them, and as they start to develop either a rights-based system or others that are sometimes based on local populations, you can start to see the economic gain. So when you and I first studied economics or many people did, there was an issue called the global commons, and it's the issue about how things can be misused. Well this is the classic case of the global commons, and since it covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface, it's a pretty big one.MICKLETHWAIT: Would you think there's a particular thing to do with people from deep inland actually using the oceans but not actually knowing that they're causing problems there? It's very obvious, fisheries, they're involved. It's very obvious hotels, right on the outside on the coast. But people from deep inland who are actually causing problems within the oceans but they never actually carry the full cost of it.ZOELLICK: Well this is another one of those British-American tensions since you're from an island maritime nation and I'm from Illinois, which you'd probably consider to be a landlocked, Midwestern…MICKLETHWAIT: Very, very landlocked, yeah.ZOELLICK: But we do have the Great Lakes. But I think as you probably know, given your study of military history, a lot of the greatest admirals come from the Midwest.MICKLETHWAIT: There's a very, very [ill] joke…ZOELLICK: I think the reality is that there's a - part of this of course is that people are unaware of this. People are unaware of the dangers that I talked about. When you think about 85 percent of the fish stocks are either being severely depleted or close to that stage, this is a huge effect. The good news is, in a world where you see the interconnections with films and internet, I think people are much more alert to this. So part of the challenge with this - and this is again where I hope we can coalesce - people are barraged with information.There's challenges, as you and I were just talking about, of all types. But I think here if you bring together a series of communities, whether it be the governments, the scientific, the conservation communities, the development community, and focus on some core points and core things to achieve, I think you have a better chance of bringing others along. What I found in this area, but also other areas of development, that's been quite encouraging is I'm increasingly finding private companies that find that the governments themselves seem to be stuck.The private companies want to push the agenda but sometimes they're less familiar with how to build the governance structures. And so if we can get those interconnected, I think we can make progress. There's an idea I just alluded to in my remarks, and probably it'll come out in the course of the discussion, which I know that Kiribati has been a key leader in - but when you start to take the island chains and then you take their 200 mile economic zones, and then you can imagine creating a network of these, you could start to have a rather significant effect in creating a form of governance because it could start to affect how fisheries industries interact with those islands.But as was noted in one of the cases, I think is the case of Kiribati, while they start to have the governance system, they don't really have much of a coast guard. So you have the US Coast Guard sending some ships out as part of a training exercise. Those are problems with rather modest investment you can take a concept of governance, an economic issue connected to the law enforcers, some minimal resources, and then you start to leverage it over different players.At the same time, it'll be very important that the communities working on this work with those that are concerned about the freedom of the seas. So I think there's a potential here to be able to leverage a series of individual islands much more effectively than we're doing today.MICKLETHWAIT: Let me throw it open to the audience questions. There's a lady there.ZOELLICK: Could you give your name or who you…MICKLETHWAIT: Yes, that would be good.ALEXANDRA VAN: Hello, I'm Alexandra [Van]. I work with the World Future Council. That's a global forum that's working to protect the rights of future generations. We will be celebrating this year the world's best ocean and coastal policies with the future policy of water partnership at the global [unclear] facility, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the CBT. So Mr Zoellick, thank you very much for your presentation and congratulations for the new partnership. I want to build up on what you have said that there needs to be much more that needs to be done, we need to agree on common recommendations and having an action plan.So I would like to get back to your comments on marine protected areas because we had this morning very good discussions about the potential economic benefits also of marine protected areas. Now, in Nagoya, governments have agreed actually to have the target of 10 percent of marine protected areas, so I would just like to follow up with you if under this partnership you will be supporting the 10 percent goal that was [already] agreed by 193 countries. Thank you very much.ZOELLICK: Well, the goal that came up from the various groups here was 5 percent. They're more than doubling. Now, would I be delighted with 10 percent? Sure. But I was at Nagoya and I've been attending some of those conferences since Rio in '92, and I guess one of the distinctions I'll draw is the difference between what I've seen between when people put words on paper and even sort of put the gavel to say a nice concluding statement - and then what they actually achieve.What we've tried to do, whether it be climate change or biodiversity or in this area with oceans, is try to organize the different parties together - conservation, scientific, international organizations and others - and set realistic goals. My own sense from what I know, that I'm happy to defer to others, that doubling the 5 percent will be a significant effort to achieve.So if you can go to five to 10 percent - as we all noted, the land is 12 percent - I'm all for it. But let's take realistic milestones and try to get them done, and once we get that one done then you can go to the next one.MICKLETHWAIT: Another question. Two hands back there.PARTICIPANT: Thank you. My name's [unclear]. I am former Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Republic of Indonesia. Right now I'm working as Professor for [unclear]. I think you agree that despite the global effort of restoring ocean deterioration. But the fact is that the state of our ocean tends to be unsustainable, be it in terms of fishing, water pollution and habitat degradation. My conclusion is that why despite global efforts, ocean still unsustainable because up until now, we're only tackling the symptoms of the problems.We've never caught the real causes of the problems, and I think that the cause of the problem in our world is that the human demand on the carrying capacity exceeds the carrying capacity of the ocean in providing resources and [unclear] and we know the human demand is determined by two things: number one is the number of population, and number two is consumption rate of the people on our resources and [unclear] of humanity in terms of pollution.So I'm just wondering if I could suggest that to tackle the global problems, I think number one, we have to increase the carrying capacity of oceans on Earth, and number two is to align our human demand [unclear] carrying capacity. My question to you then…MICKLETHWAIT: I think you've gone on a very long time. Can you just give your question very rapidly?PARTICIPANT: Yeah, my question is, how to reduce or control human demand?MICKLETHWAIT: Thank you, that's a very good question. Essentially it's [Malthuse] of the seas.ZOELLICK: Well, this is an interesting issue that arises at the interstices of a lot of conservation and environmental issues and economic growth issues. The economist's answer would be price because that's what allocates scarce goods. I think what we've all identified here is we have a problem because of the commons and so the normal market economic mechanisms don't work because you really don't have in many areas the property rights or the ownership and so you've had people who will get short-term gains and not invest in the long term.So part of what we've been discussing is how through governance reforms, lessons about how you can create rights-based systems, but also sort of a recognition that various communities have to have their sensitivities taken into account, so in some areas, it's a question of who's going to get the fishing rights, whether it'll be local population. Then in any market-based system, you also have to have enforcement, and part of the big problem in this area is whatever rights and aspects haven't been enforced. So there's huge steps that can be taken in these areas.The reason I'm taking this approach is that what I've seen in other areas of development and environment, if you pose the two against each other, if you put growth against environment, I think you're going to spend a lot of time debating and there's going to be a lot of poor people who want to grow and develop and want their sources of protein. So maybe it's just my bias but I found whether it be carbon and climate change or others that you can find a lot of win-win, mutual solutions and you're likely to build a broader coalition and build more support.I think it's time that that be tried in the oceans area because we're starting to see the coalescence of different communities; science, island-based nations, coastal nations, people recognizing this. But the question is how do we interconnect these? And I think the start is set some basic goals and then share the information about what works and then try to finance it.MICKLETHWAIT: There's another question just beyond the white hand - white-shirted…JERRY KNICK: Mr Zoellick, my name's Jerry [Knick] and I actually owe you a debt of gratitude because three years ago, [unclear] programs, you provided some funding for us to develop a concept for developing sustainable fisheries as an industry-led activity [in Indonesia]. Three years later we've gone through the process of developing all the parts and pieces and we're about to start [unclear] and building the infrastructure that's part of the plan. Interestingly enough, the most difficult part of this process has been financing it. My experience has been that the financing institutions of the world [unclear] in this space [unclear] fisheries [unclear] they'll perceive the risk of being too high to get involved. So my question to you is how accessible is financing going to be for fisheries in transition part [unclear] overall [plan as] proposed?ZOELLICK: Two points. The first one is, I think what we have to recognize, that some of these areas we're talking about public goods. So the question is - and this is why we're starting out with this $300 million catalytic fund and we're looking to governments, some private sector participants and others, there'll be some investments that wouldn't be made on a basic market term.Second, however, as I've suggested, you could switch what are in some cases a lot of misapplied subsidy policies or also policies that might create incentives or disincentives with fees and licensing or taxes or other arrangements to try to create the right economic structure. What I've been encouraged by is you're finding more and more private sector players that look at the facts that we've seen and realize this can't go on and so they're interested in trying to invest in a rebuilding effort.The World Bank has a private sector arm, IFC, that is also going to be part of this, so as we work with partners to be able to try to get the governance in the market and the protected areas right to try to see how we might be able to catalyze further private sector investment in addition to the public sector side. On the public sector side again, we as an institution, as I mentioned already, have about $1.6 billion in this area. That is not money that we decide by ourselves. We have to do that with governments.So part of this goes back to getting the word out to the governments about how these are in their interest and then they can use the various financing mechanisms that we have, whether it be coastal zone or fisheries or marine protected areas, which we're involved with all of it. But then let me make the second point, 'cause it's something I want to emphasize about the World Bank's involvement - something I've tried to emphasize over the past four and a half years of my tenure. We're trying to work as a network player here.With a lot of the questions and the reason why this conference I think is particularly valuable, as others that have led to it, is we see ourselves in a catalytic role but certainly not one that knows all the answers. I know I've been with John at a couple of different functions where I've just been stunned by some of the insights that you have, not surprisingly, of people in marine biology, others that have devoted themselves.So what I do want to communicate with people, I'm glad our modest investment with you has started to pay off, but where we see ourselves as trying to be a support in a process is to use the networks that we have across different communities but frankly draw on the ideas of people in this room and others that are committed to it.MICKLETHWAIT: I'm very sorry. Unfortunately we have to come to an end there because Bob has to catch a plane. But I would like to thank him…ZOELLICK: Actually, to see the Finance Minister.MICKLETHWAIT: To see the Finance Minister to try and raise money for this great purpose. I would like to thank him very, very much for coming in and for making the time. It's been a heroic scheduling appointment to come here. It's a delight as usual to have you, and I will take you off and we will hand over to [Dominic Ziegler] up here. Thank you. Show Less -
Signing of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) Sustainable Energy Partnership Mechanism
Opening Statement AMBASSADOR DESSIMA WILLIAMS: … Of course partnerships are the name of the game now, so I want to welcome to the podium the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick. And as he... Show More + approaches, I also thank his team for their preparation, thank you. MR. ZOELLICK: Thank you very much Ambassador Williams [Inaudible]--but I see that you're moving us all very effectively through this, so I want to thank you for your efforts. And Prime Minister Thomas is an important leader, my colleague Helen Clark [ph] from UNDP. But I have to have a special word of thanks for Dr. Lykke Friis. Denmark has provided generous support, without which we really wouldn't be able to launch this. But in addition, as you got the sense, Denmark is a policy innovator. As Dr. Friis mentioned, part of this maybe comes from Denmark's experience as an island state itself. But she didn't mention the fact that there's another connection here, which is that if you go to Copenhagen along the dock area, there's a beautiful warehouse that has murals of the old ties that Denmark had with the Caribbean, going back 200 years. So Denmark itself had experience with being a Caribbean state for a while. I think it's important, one of the lessons we learned out of Copenhagen was there's obviously some very large countries doing and playing an important role in dealing with climate change. But we really have to go build a broad coalition. And in this case the small island states really have been the leaders on the climate agenda for over two decades. It was the Maldives that was one of the first countries to draw attention to the risk of rising sea levels. Barbados and Mauritius played leadership roles in developing the Barbados Program of Action and the Mauritius Strategy for Implementation. Antigua and Barbuda, along with Jamaica, are currently playing lead roles with the Ad hoc Working Group for the Kyoto Protocol and Clean Development Mechanism. I had a chance to meet the Prime Minister when we were in Grenada, and I had a sense that this is something he's coming out with, I mean when we were in Copenhagen, that's something that we needed to put more effort in. I had a chance then to go down to the Caribbean, to meet with the CARICOM colleagues and I think some of this work is an example of something that I think we'll deal--we'll get a better sense of out of Cancun, which is that while we work going at the treaty level, we don't have to wait. These are important building blocks, and we can learn, we can develop pilots, there's been--a critical need is to learn how to scale up along the way. And I think one of the reasons why AOSIS is such a good partner is these countries are not waiting. These are very practical steps that we're taking across a variety of areas. At the Bank, the island states have been some of the first that we've developed a multi-sovereign catastrophic risk insurance product with. We support something called the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility, which provides immediate financial liquidity when various parameters are triggered because of wind or hurricanes. Islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific are mainstreaming adaptation and disaster risk management into their core development planning. We've been able to work with our colleagues at other regional development banks to have a Pilot Program for Climate Resilience to help them with these efforts. Many island states have already taken the lead in developing their own low-carbon strategies. The Maldives was one of the very first countries to announce a plan to become carbon neutral within ten years. Barbados is a leader in developing solar water heaters and providing technical assistance to others based on its experience. The Marshall Islands are proposing a low-carbon agreement among a small group of island states. So we at the Bank feel that these are exceptionally good partners, to try to not only help them but to demonstrate a larger example so we can then apply this to another occasion. Natural disasters hit small island states with significant economic losses. For example, in the case of Grenada, Hurricane Ivan had damages worth 200 percent of GDP in 2004. So we're trying to work with countries to integrate the climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into overall economic growth programs. The pilot programs that we're working on with climate resilience includes investment pilots in six Caribbean and three Pacific Islands, also in coordinating one regional component focused on scientific data collection, monitoring, and capacity building, and each of these programs includes about $60 to $75 million in grants. Right now we're supporting Grenada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in reducing vulnerability to weather hazards. In the Pacific, the Bank, with the support of the GEF, has been working with Kiribati on trying to mainstream climate adaptation in development plans and investments, and we have similar operations in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Through IDA, which is the fund that we have for overall development for the 79 poorest countries and through a Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, we finance disaster risk management for coastal infrastructure in Samoa and Tonga, as well as capacity building in nine Pacific island countries. We also with specific Pacific Catastrophic Risk Assessment Financing to try to provide the Pacific Islands with disaster risk assessment tools and options. Now, this program is obviously a key element because there's, as Dr. Park [ph.] said, these are countries that not only get hit by climate change and rising sea levels but they pay an extra price in terms of energy costs. So if we can get energy efficiency, develop alternative energy sources, we have multiple benefits. What we need to do is take the experience here and draw regional interconnections that offer some broader support to electricity sectors, particularly in hurricane-stricken archipelagos. So the Clean Technology Fund that we've developed as part of our Climate Investment Fund packages has the benefit of being able to leverage some of these investments up to eight times or more and, frankly, we then develop valuable experience as we go. So we're very proud to have a partnership with AOSIS. AOSIS has been a leader, that if we're going to deal with climate change more generally, whether it's island states, mountain states, others, we've got to bring everybody to the coalition, and so we're very appreciative particularly of UNDP and Denmark in helping us get this catalytic piece forward. Thank you. Show Less -
Remarks for First International Tiger Forum in St. Petersburg of High Level Plenary Session
Prime Minister Putin, Honorable Prime Ministers of Bangladesh, China, Lao PDR, and Nepal, Honorable Ministers, distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,I want to open by thanking the government of... Show More + Russia, and in particular Prime Minister Putin, for hosting this first International Tiger Forum with the World Bank Group. Prime Minister Putin, as an outdoorsman, has shown a personal connection to wildlife conservation. And Russia has important experience to share. Half a century ago, the number of tigers in Russia's Far East dwindled to a few dozens. With intensive protection, the incredible Siberian tiger subspecies grew to about 500, only to be threatened again 20 years ago. The Prime Minister showed, with the right help and policies, tigers could revive.I also want to express my gratitude to the leaders of all the tiger range countries for their commitment to saving wild tigers from extinction; their personal involvement is a heartening sign to the many groups – governmental, international, scientific, and conservation – that are here with us. Thank you.Progress since the launch of GTI; importance of the GTRPTogether, we have made progress since the launch of the Global Tiger Initiative in 2008.The defining feature of the Global Tiger Initiative is that it is owned and driven by the tiger range countries themselves. As the World Bank has learned the hard way in other fields of development, if the local country doesn't own the process – no matter how well-intentioned the outsiders who seek to support – the plans won't work.At the same time, tigers and illegal traffickers in dead tigers don't respect borders. So we need international cooperation: for borderless habitats; to stop demand for illegal trade; to attack the criminal networks that prey on wildlife.We also need to draw the best insights – from scientists and conservationists, law enforcement, advocacy groups, rangers and park managers – to customize actions to achieve our common goal.Time is short. With only about 3,200 tigers left in the wild, we have little margin for error. This summit is highlighting the last chance for this incredible animal.The Global Tiger Recovery Program, driven by the tiger range countries and based on the foundations of 13 customized National Tiger Recovery Priorities, offers a new approach to the conservation of wild tigers. It describes what the tiger range countries will do to carry out the St. Petersburg Declaration. The Global Tiger Recovery Program is an expression of the collective will of the tiger range countries.The Global Tiger Recovery Program also lays out the opportunities for international partners to assist, as we share a common responsibility.Through a process of mutual feedback loops and accountability among the tiger range countries and the international partners, the cooperative process we are forging may well create a new business model for wildlife conservation. The World Bank Group is proud to be a catalyst and convener and colleague of many, many parties who are more experienced and expert at wildlife conservation. We look to learn from you. We look for opportunities to use our networks and resources to encourage the various parties to find win-win solutions -- and to hold all of our feet to the fire, including our own.I am pleased to announce today that the World Bank Group will support the Global Tiger Recovery Program in five ways.First, the World Bank is working with Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, and we hope India, to finance a South Asia regional Wildlife project of approximately $100 million. Our cooperating partners include WWF, IUCN, TRAFFIC, IFAW, WCS, and others.Second, we will work on a similar project with tiger range countries in Southeast Asia, as well as with CITES, Interpol, UNODC, WCO, and, most importantly regional institutions, such as ASEAN-Wildlife Enforcement Network to stop the illegal trade and trafficking in tiger body parts. This could include additional finance.Third, the World Bank will not finance any infrastructure projects that impact core tiger breeding areas -- areas that the tiger range countries plan to make inviolate. We can and will foster sustainable "smart green" infrastructure development that not only maintains ecosystems, but enhances them.I hope the principles of smart green infrastructure will become part of the public policy of tiger range countries and international financial institutions. Bricks and mortar should not bury biodiversity. Critical ecosystems should not be paved over for short-term economic gains.Fourth, the Bank will work with Nepal, Malaysia, WWF, and other interested partners to develop a new Wildlife Premium Market Initiative to complement the funding we expect to support REDD+. REDD+ will help finance efforts to preserve forests and avoid deforestation.But we don't just want silent forests, without the roars of tigers and the calls of other species. This new market initiative would recognize the value of wildlife and return benefits to local communities, while providing sustainable financing for tiger conservation. More generally, the Bank is committed to integrating natural capital valuation into national accounting systems. This may help tiger range countries to assess the true value of tiger landscapes.Fifth, we will continue to provide support for the Global Tiger Initiative, so it can work with the Global Tiger Forum, regional institutions, country programs, scientific bodies, NGOs, the GEF, UN agencies and others to examine the progress of the Global Tiger Recovery Program. Where we can, we will try to help mobilize other resources and expertise to assist. If there is interest in the World Bank coordinating a Multi-Donor Trust Fund to support the Global Tiger Recovery Program, we would be pleased to do so.Like all of you, I'm struck by the small window we have to turn the population of wild tigers around. Yet working together, quickly learning what works and what doesn't, mobilizing public attention and support, I believe we can save the wild tigers, their natural landscapes, and all of the biodiversity that lives with the tiger. Thank you. Show Less -
Remarks for Opening Plenary of the High Level Segment -- COP10
Prime Minister Kan, Minister Matsumoto, Executive Secretary Djoghlaf, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like the people of Nagoya and Japan for being such gracious hosts. I am delighted that the... Show More + government of Japan invited us to a city known for being a major center of global manufacturing that has strived to respect and protect its rich biodiversity. I would like to share four thoughts with you today. Why focus on Biodiversity? First, you probably know of the World Bank Group as a development institution. So, you might wonder, why is the World Bank attending a conference on biodiversity? Our answer is clear: successful conservation of our natural resources, our ecosystems, and our biodiversity is central to addressing all development challenges and to improving the lives of the poor. Biological resources provide livelihoods, sustenance, medicines, trade, tourism, industry, and more. Forests, grasslands, lakes, oceans, deserts, and other natural ecosystems provide a range of natural services that people have often taken for granted, even though they are vital to human welfare. I would add one more consideration: each of us – all of us – are stewards of other life on this planet. We should respect those lives. As a practical matter, we need to demonstrate the connections among overcoming poverty, sustainable economic growth, and the preservation of the planet's rich natural heritage. There can be no effective preservation of that heritage unless it is done with and for the poor, who rely directly on natural resources for their livelihoods. The countries of the world adopted The Convention on Biological Diversity in Rio 18 years ago. Since then, we have made progress by: establishing new protected areas;regulating trade in wildlife;respecting the rights of indigenous communities;empowering communities and civil society organizations to conserve critical ecosystems; andimproving our understanding of the earth's environment through research such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Investments in conservation have been substantial. World Bank Group Investment in Biodiversity Over the last 20 years, the Bank Group, working with developing countries, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), environmental organizations, foundations, and many donor countries has supported over $6 billion in biodiversity conservation in more than 120 countries. This is an impressive figure. But it is not enough. Productivity of the land and seas is diminishing, and with them the ecosystem services that are crucial for people to get out of poverty. The buffering capacity of our environment is dwindling as climate change accelerates. Endangered species are fading away forever before our very eyes. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature warns us that one in four mammals, one in eight birds, and one in every three amphibians and corals face extinction. Who should be focusing on biodiversity? Second, to arrest the downward spiral in biodiversity, we need to draw in a broader group of stakeholders. We must reach out to and rely on key stakeholders who may not yet feel responsible or empowered to take actions to protect the environment. I've seen in my own experience that some of the most effective eco-system champions come from outside environment or forestry ministries. My former boss, at the U.S. Treasury Department, Secretary James Baker, led the way on debt-for-nature swaps, elephant ivory, and polar bears. More recently, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson hatched an idea with me that became the Climate Investment Funds, which can have biodiversity benefits. When I was the U.S. Trade Representative, we used Free Trade Agreements to build cooperation with local and international groups on CITES, migration routes, and local biodiversity projects. We need to engage more Finance, Economic, and Commerce Ministers. The potential allies reach far beyond governments. Many businesses want to assist. We need to connect the cause of biodiversity with all-comers, but especially those engaged with economic growth, infrastructure development, and overcoming poverty. We must strengthen and scale-up the actions that are proving effective -- at every level. Last year, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I was struck by the immense biodiversity present in Virunga National Park, the oldest and most biologically diverse nature reserve in Africa. Courageous rangers were facing down poachers, charcoal traffickers, and warring militias. Against all these odds, they had managed to increase the population of the park's rare mountain gorillas during years of conflict. These rangers deserve our thanks – but also our help. The custodians of Virunga only needed a few million dollars to back a project to substitute locally made briquettes from grass and agricultural waste for charcoal, to save the forest. Other rangers just need basic supplies, training support, and an opportunity to learn from their colleagues around the world. That's one reason why I am meeting with a group of rangers here in Nagoya – to learn what they need. Similarly, we must all learn from and continue working with indigenous communities. Under difficult conditions, they serve as stewards for biodiversity-rich ecosystems. How Can We Value the wealth of biodiversity? Third, we must provide the missing information to guide leaders as they make decisions about biodiversity. Tomorrow we will launch a new partnership: the Global Partnership for Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services Valuation and Wealth Accounting. This new initiative will enable us to work with partners to strengthen capacity, particularly in finance and planning ministries, and integrate the true value of biodiversity and ecosystem services into a country's development planning and its accounting systems. Let me explain why natural wealth accounting is important. Economic ministries make decisions based on calculations of growth, employment, prices, asset values, and returns on investments by private and public actors. As one COO told me: "In business, you are what you measure". So we need to assist the economic agencies to measure "natural wealth". The value of services we derive from ecosystems shouldn't be assumed to be zero. The world is slowly starting to recognize these values, for example, through payments to avoid deforestation. But we need to help advance natural wealth accounting. For example, the calculation on destroying wetlands for housing would no longer be simply the cost of the construction and the sale of the houses producing a return on investment. Instead it would deduct from the profit the subsidies from mortgage interest relief as well as the costs from destroying wetland livelihoods and the costs that could incur from losing a barrier to cyclones. I want the World Bank Group to show what can be done. We will increase financing of ecosystem and biodiversity services through our projects in a wide range of sectors -- including infrastructure, agriculture, climate change, and policy lending operations. To help countries use this new work, we will also need to help them build capacity. So I'm pleased to see that the Revised Strategic Plan for the Convention increases support to mainstream biodiversity into sustainable development and poverty reduction. The Bank Group will also seek to reach out to other stakeholders, from rangers to businessmen, and on to investors in Green Funds. The Critical Ecosystems Partnerships Fund, launched ten years ago will help mobilize nongovernmental and private sector partners in conserving the Earth's most biologically rich and threatened areas. Our new Save Our Species program will build support with business leaders. Fourth, the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI) is both a commitment to save an iconic species and an innovation in conservation. Since its launch in 2008, the GTI has been pioneering a new conservation model: The GTI encourages the Tiger Range countries to "own" the process. As we learned in other fields of development, outsiders, however well intentioned, will not be successful without local ownership. The 13 tiger range countries have now developed their own Global Tiger Recovery Program, connecting to local communities that are stewards of these landscapes, international research institutions such as the Smithsonian, national and international law enforcement groups, local and international conservation groups, celebrities and public information campaigns, and many others. We plan to go further. Tomorrow, we will be announcing that we are developing the Wildlife Premium Market Initiative, as a complement to REDD. REDD, as you know, addresses forests, climate and carbon. The idea behind the Wildlife Premium Market Initiative is to pay money to the rural poor for protecting high biodiversity wild life in forests, as part of a REDD++ system. Government leaders from all 13 tiger range countries will meet next month in St. Petersburg, hosted by Prime Minister Putin, to commit to saving tigers and all of the biodiversity that lives under the tiger's umbrella. We are making progress, but we are racing against the clock. Only some 3,200 tigers remain in the wild. This incredible animal could be extinct in our lifetime. So in St Petersburg, bringing the heads of government together for the first time on this issue, we will seek to reverse the decline in wild tiger populations. Conclusion Mr Chairman, biodiversity is not an add-on. Preserving ecosystems and saving species are not luxuries for the rich. Conservation and development can go hand in hand. Our habitat and our planet deserve nothing less. Show Less -