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The Foreign Post
April 20 - 26, 2000
WASHINGTON, DC -World Bank president James Wolfensohn, responding to an avalanche of criticism of his organization, is defending the lending institution as a catalyst for social justice and poverty reduction.
Speaking on the eve of spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Wolfensohn said he was disturbed about protesters trying to shut down the gatherings, and added that the institutions are open to dialogue.
"Of course I'm concerned about the noise outside," Wolfensohn said. "It would be impossible not to be affected when you operate in an institution where you think that what you're doing is dealing with justice and dealing with poverty."
He added, "It's a bit demoralizing when you see that there's a mobilization for social justice when you think that's what we're doing every day."
Wolfensohn said the World Bank had "reached out extensively" to nongovernmental organizations representing an array of people from around the world.
"We're ready to consult and discuss on any issue with anybody at any time," the World Bank chief said. "I just regret it when that debate is forestalled by an attempt to close down the meetings."
Security forces were on high alert to deal with protests by anti-globalization demonstrators.
The Mobilization for Global Justice, which groups organized labor, faith-based movements. human rights campaigners and environmental activists, coordinated a week of teachings and street theater leading up to street demonstrations as their planned climax.
The activists charge that IMF and World Bank policies have impoverished and exploited millions of people in developing countries and have devastated the environment.
Wolfensohn sharply reacted to charges. He said that the Bank had helped lift 300 million to 400 million people out of deep poverty but that the number of poor people remained about constant because of population increases.
"There is now an absolute focus on the question of poverty," he said.
He said the bank has set a target for the next 15 year of reducing poverty to 14.5 percent of global population, from the current 24 percent. He acknowledged that "the task is very daunting."
He maintained that the bank also was committed to projects that help protect the environment and improve education and health and contended that the image presented by protesters of an organization isolated from concerns of ordinary people is "wrong."
"It's just the wrong image to say that ... we're not working with civil society," he said. "It is simply not correct. We are. And it is an essential part for us."
Wolfensohn said efforts to "tear down" the organization would be counterproductive for poverty fighting efforts.
"For us at the bank, the major problem that I worry about is trying to tear down the institution when the poverty challenge is the greatest.
"We should try and retain the institutions that we have. We can modulate the way in which we run them, we can open them, but ... radical steps are something that I think would be very, very hazardous at this moment. "And that's why I'm against a lot of the radical reforms and closing things down."
Wolfensohn conceded that the bank needed to be reformed, but said he has been trying to do that from inside through a change in "culture" rather than a change in the bank charter.
"That sort reform doesn't need a change in the charter," he said. "It needs a change in the way in which you operate. It needs a change in the culture.
"And what I hope we'll be able to do (is) to weld a consensus ... (and) an attempt to close down the meetings is not exactly the environment in which you can bring that about with whatever charter."
By Rob Lever