1、Abstract （Summary）A speech at the National Press Club by World Bank Group president Robert B. Zoellick is presented. Having now served as president of the World Bank Group for 100 days, the speaker wanted to share his initial impressions and ideas for strategic directions. The staff of the World Ban
2、k Group has helped him learn, shown him their vital work in the field, and offered fresh ideas as they set a course for the future. Yet the real face of the World Bank Group is not the one usually seen in Washington, or in the drawing rooms of the capitals of their major shareholders. Given the oppo
3、rtunity, people everywhere want to build a better life for themselves and their children. That impulse, if given a chance, can contribute to a healthy and prosperous global society. Globalization offers incredible opportunities. Yet exclusion, grinding poverty, and environmental damage create danger
4、s. Jump to indexing （document details）Full Text（5125 words）Copyright Southern Methodist University Spring 2008October 10, 2007As Prepared for DeliveryHAVING now served as President of the World Bank Group for 100 days, I wanted to share my initial impressions and ideas for strategic directions.I gre
5、atly appreciate the encouragement and support I have received from many quarters. I sense that people around the world-in developing and developed countries-recognize both the need for and potential of this unique creation. The World Bank Group is one of the great multilateral institutions establish
6、ed after World War II. Sixty years later, it must adapt to vastly different circumstances in a new era of globalization.The staff of the World Bank Group has helped me learn, shown me our vital work in the field, and offered fresh ideas as we set a course for the future. The Board is offering experi
7、enced guidance as we strive to turn good intentions and analysis into productive actions.THE FACE OF THE WORLD BANK GROUPYet the real face of the World Bank Group is not the one usually seen in Washington, or in the drawing rooms of the capitals of our major shareholders.When I visited Yen Bai Provi
8、nce in the northern mountains of Vietnam this August, I met a woman who now has electricity to help grind rice, pump water, power fans, and light her one room household so her children can study at night-because the World Bank financed a Vietnamese electrification project. Electricity now eases the
9、chores of over 90 percent of rural households in Vietnam. As in other societies, rural electrification most of all empowers the women who bear the brunt of daily farm labor.In Honduras, the World Bank is helping save Pico Bonito National Park through the Bio Carbon Fund, which supports farmers who a
10、re shifting from cutting the native Redondo trees to selling their seeds and replanting saplings. As one farmer said, We still have our trees and I can still make money, even more than I did before. We even take care of the wild seedlings.In Nigeria, the International Finance Corporation, our privat
11、e sector arm, helped a single mother in the village of Ovoko to obtain a microfinance loan to become a village phone operator. Villagers used to have to travel a day to make a phone call. Now this entrepreneur helps her neighbors connect to the broader world, while earning money to pay for her child
12、rens school fees and medication for her own HIV/AIDs treatments.Given the opportunity, people everywhere want to build a better life for themselves and their children. That impulse, if given a chance, can contribute to a healthy and prosperous global society.AN INCLUSIVE & SUSTAINABLE GLOBALIZATION:
13、 THE NEEDSWe live in an age of globalization. Yet its contours are uncertain. Since the end of the Cold War, the number of people in the world market economy has increased from about one billion to four or five-vastly increasing the productive labor force, building new manufacturing and service cent
14、ers throughout the developing world, boosting demand for energy and commodities, and creating vast possibilities for increased consumption. New pools of savings are adding to global capital flows that are drawn to investment opportunities offered by both emerging markets and transforming developed e
15、conomies. The transfer of skills, technologies, information, and applied practical knowledge is rushing ahead.The global flow of trade has more than doubled since 1990. More open economies lower the cost of goods and services. More countries are relying on export-led growth. While the purchases from
16、 developed economies remain important, new trade patterns reflect regional and global supply chains and increasing south-south trade. Nearly 300 million people have escaped extreme poverty.Yet many remain on the fringes and some are falling further behind. They can be counted as countries, as region
17、s and groups within countries, or as individuals. Their exclusion has many causes-including conflicts, poor governance and corruption, discrimination, lack of basic human needs, disease, the absence of infrastructure, weak economic management and incentives, lack of property rights and rule of law,
18、and even geography and weather.We can also see the environmental challenge of this extraordinary surge of growth, with rivers that run black, skies that block the sun, and threats to health and climate.Globalization offers incredible opportunities. Yet exclusion, grinding poverty, and environmental
19、damage create dangers. The ones that suffer most are those who have the least to start with-indigenous peoples, women in developing countries, the rural poor, Africans, and their children.It is the vision of the World Bank Group to contribute to an inclusive and sustainable globalization-to overcome
20、 poverty, enhance growth with care for the environment, and create individual opportunity and hope.In 2000, the countries of the United Nations established eight Millennium Development Goals -ambitious targets to halve poverty, fight hunger and disease, and deliver basic services to the poor by 2015
21、. These goals, our goals, are posted by the main entrance of our headquarters building, reminding us everyday of what we come to work to accomplish.These aims of sound social development need to be combined with the requirements for sustainable growth, driven by the private sector, within a supporti
22、ve framework of public policies.Consider some of the needs.Every year, malaria strikes some 500 million people worldwide. Yet we could get close to overcoming this leading killer of African children. It would take an investment of approximately $3 billion a year over the next few years to provide ev
23、ery household vulnerable to malaria with treated bed nets, medicines, and modest amounts of indoor insecticide.The International Energy Agency estimates that developing countries will need about $170 billion of investment in the power sector each year over the next decade just to keep up with electr
24、icity needs, with an extra $30 billion per year to transition to a low carbon energy mix.An additional $30 billion per year is needed to achieve the Millennium Goal of supplying safe water to 1.5 billion people and sanitation to the two billion people who lack these most basic necessities, also impr
25、oving gender equality in poor countries.There is need for another $130 billion a year to meet the transportation infrastructure requirements of growing developing countries, including an estimated $10 billion a year for maritime container terminals to accommodate opportunities in trade.And to provid
26、e primary education for some eighty million out-ofschool children, another Millennium Goal, low-income countries will require about $7 billion per year.HOW THE WORLD BANK GROUP CAN HELPMeeting these needs is not, of course, just a question of money. Nor is it the role of the World Bank Group to fina
27、nce the investments by itself.It is the purpose of the Bank Group to assist countries to help themselves by catalyzing the capital and policies through a mix of ideas and experience, development of private market opportunities, and support for good governance and anti-corruption-spurred by our finan
28、cial resources.It is the purpose of the Bank Group to advance ideas about international projects and agreements on trade, finance, health, poverty, education, and climate change so that they can benefit all, especially the poor seeking new opportunities.We should be expanding the frontiers of thinki
29、ng about policy and markets, pioneering new possibilities, not just recycling the passably proven with a modest financial advantage.I have been stressing the idea of the World Bank Group to make a point. We are a single institution, operating through specialized affiliates, as is the case for many l
30、arge financial firms. We must strengthen our interaction and effectiveness as a Group.Our Group has four principal parts. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development （IBRD） is our public finance arm, providing loans based on market prices, risk management, and other financial services,
31、 combined with deep development experience. The International Development Association （IDA） is an aid conduit that provides interestfree loans and grants to the eighty-one poorest countries, as well as significant debt relief. The International Finance Corporation （IFC） is our private sector arm, ma
32、king equity investments, loans, and guarantees, while offering advisory services in developing countries. And the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency （MIGA） supplies political risk insurance. Operating together, we can leverage these tools to ensure that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.All of these components share a body of expert learning and experience covering a host of development
