James Wolfensohn
You need to have the opportunity for people to benefit and not be beaten up, either physically or in terms of corruption or in terms of lacking opportunities.
You have to get out to meet people that are in poverty, that are looking to improve their lives.
When I travel, I make certain that I spend at least half of my time in the field.
What we need to do is increase the totality of money that is given to the poorest areas and then we can do more on prevention but we have crucial needs at the moment just to get people out of poverty and to get the eight hundred million people that go to bed at night hungry, give them some food and some hope.
What is important is to let the people in the countries drive what their needs are and have a coordinated effort, engage the community, and only after that will we know how much.
Well the specific role of the World Bank is to be ready with financial assistance immediately after this emergency takes place because you need to reconnect water, you need to reconnect power, you need roads, you need bridges, and that has to be done urgently.
We're very blessed to have that equal opportunity.
We take for granted a lot of the framework that allows us to benefit and to grow.
We have three billion people, half the world's population today, living on less than two dollars a day.
We have extensive networks of not just talking, but of doing projects with civil society all around the world.
We have 25 million cases of AIDS in Africa today and 10 million orphans. So the first item on the agenda for me in Africa is always AIDS.
We accept that every one of us has the right to protest a contract, to protest that we own something, that we have the right to property, that we have the right to certain human protections.
Too many of the conflicts which are caused today are caused by the problems that emerge from people who are in poverty.
They just want an opportunity like you and I would have wanted. They want peace; they want a chance to bring up their kids; they want to live in safety.
The things that really impacted me were the numbers, the inevitability of the numbers, the limitations of our planet, the interdependence of our planet in terms of people.
The thing that is crucial here is the human dimension of it and the other aspect that we need to understand is that these areas are real poverty areas.
The second thing is trade - you have to open your markets to trade. If you don't do that, you're cutting off these markets, giving them no chance.
The reason was very simple: You've got faster growth in developing countries; you've got many greater opportunities in terms of people and development.
The notion of the world as a village is becoming a reality.
The issue of poverty is not a statistical issue. It is a human issue, Charlie.