James Wolfensohn
The first thing you talk about in Africa today is AIDS.
The first thing that you need to deal with is the issue of equity and poverty.
Tanzania is a country where Benjamin Mkapa came in on a platform to fight corruption.
So when you talk about a need for rules and a need for change to the environment, it is very necessary today but critically urgent in terms of preparing for the next 25 years.
So when you ask why are those people not as rich as we are, why don't they have the opportunity, the first level is that they don't have the framework and the environment in which they can have equal opportunity.
So the first thing you need to do about conflict is to prevent it, and the best way of preventing it is by dealing with the question of poverty.
So debt relief can be very, very important and that will be part of a needs assessment and the method of financing that we'll be doing in the coming weeks.
Our role is not just the simplistic way one thinks of giving charity or giving aid.
One of the principal things we're doing is to assist countries that wish to have a democratic framework create an environment in which those people that have very little can have an opportunity to advance themselves.
Now, Mkapa is a great believer in a private enterprise system and in engaging the private sector, but he has to create an atmosphere in which that private sector can flourish.
It's not as easy as it has been in the United States, which was founded on principles of equity and free speech and opportunity and a legal and judicial system which protects rights.
It's also been demonstrated that corruption is the thing that holds poor people back the most.
Investment is important because it brings not just money; it brings the technology that is needed, and it brings marketing capacity and jobs.
In 1990 there was about $30 billion per year flowing to developing countries against overseas assistance of about $60 billion.
If you have Palestinians who have no hope, who don't have a job, who've used up all their resources, the notion of getting rid of violence is a dream.
If you go country by country, you'll see that the framework in the countries, the history of the countries, is very different.
I was interested in the challenge in the World Bank, because it's a challenge that relates not just to investment, but to people.
I was deeply concerned then, and have become more concerned since, that unless we can deal with the questions of development and the questions of poverty, there's no way that we're going to have a peaceful world for our children.
I don't think the rules have kept up on capital markets, I don't think the rules have kept up in terms of transparency in the international scene, and I don't think the rules have kept up on trade.
Globalization in the sense of the world becoming smaller has been going on, since Adam and Eve.