-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,592449,00.html
}}}>Begin
Interview
The west knows now there is no wall to hide behind
Afghanistan must be rebuilt valley by valley, says James Wolfensohn
Larry Elliott, economics editor
Tuesday November 13, 2001
The Guardian
The president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, warned last night
that global poverty was breeding terrorism and called on the west to
make good on its promises to bridge the gulf between rich and poor
nations.
Interviewed on a visit to London, Mr Wolfensohn said attempts to
construct a fairer economy were being frustrated by a lack of aid and
protectionism in the developed world, but added that the events of
September 11 had proved that there was no artificial barrier between
the two halves of the world.
"I was saying before September 11 that the issue of poverty and
development, the issue of trade, the issue of the environment, of
health, of migration, of crime, of drugs, were all global things.
They don't recognise borders," he said.
"We have a situation where 20% of the world's population have 80% of the wealth, and
the other 80% has just 20%. If that's a situation that leads to instability, then we
are saying that that instability will convey itself
through migration, through wars within countries and through crime and terrorism.
"Many people of my generation grew up in developed countries thinking that the world
was divided into two parts, and that there was a wall round the developed world. They
thought that poor people had no relevance to us. W
hat happened on September 11 was that anybody who thought there was a wall now knows
that there is no wall. Conditions in one part of the world can affect us in the world
behind that imaginary wall. Afghanistan can land i
n New York or on the Pentagon."
Asked whether he thought that the west was responsible for the terrorist attacks, the
World Bank president said: "I don't know about that. What I would say is that when
observers 25 years from now look back on recent even
ts they will say the west was ignorant of and didn't give a lot of attention to
movements and conditions in the developing world. And people in the developing world
were building up hatreds and didn't have the right infor
mation about the developed world."
Mr Wolfensohn said he was in London to have talks with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
about the reconstruction of Afghanistan and the need for action at this weekend's
meetings in Ottawa of the World Bank and the Internation
al Monetary Fund to bridge the gap between rich and poor countries.
"Afghanistan is a country which has very little in terms of existing governance or
infrastructure. It doesn't have a political framework. The first thing that's needed
is a political solution that's Afghan and not imposed
. We have to have people who can take over and work with us. That has to be done
almost region by region and valley by valley.
"We need to help them build governance, strengthen capacity and put systems into
place. Then we need an assessment of what's needed region by region. After that we can
work on the basic education, health and communication
s which they need. We have to meet Afghan needs, but these are likely to be limited by
the absorbative capacity of the country. Rebuilding Afghanistan is not going to be
solved by pouring billions in. Getting rid of the T
aliban does not rid us of the problems of fundamentalism and instability."
Mr Wolfensohn said he had no idea how much reconstruction would cost but said that
money was unlikely to be a limiting factor. Money had been found for Bosnia, East
Timor and Palestine, while the $700m (£480m) proferred a
lready for humanitarian relief in Afghanistan suggested that the necessary funds would
be available.
The Bank's president said that the defeat of the Taliban regime would be crucial in
boosting the prospects of educating girls, which the Bank sees as the key indicator of
development in poor countries. "People who have be
en educating girls in Afghanistan have been killed" he said. "It's a crime there."
He added that the west needed to think about an economic "cordon sanitaire" around the
area of conflict that would include northern Pakistan, the former Soviet republics to
the north, and Iran to the west.
In terms of the global economy, Mr Wolfensohn said it was clear that the terrorist
attacks would delay recovery. "Prior to September 11, the three engines - the United
States, Germany and Japan - were all slowing. We feel
that the hoped-for recovery, which is based on confidence, has taken a knock. You
don't have to be an economist to make that judgment."
With the Bank now expecting global growth of just 1% next year. "We are particularly
concerned about developing countries, which account for 4.8bn people. They have been
hit in terms of falling commodity prices but also i
n ways that were not expected, such as the drop off in tourism to the Caribbean.
"The result is that 20m people are not going to get out of poverty, a lot more kids
will be dying because of a lack of health care and a lack of nutrition. That's the
problem for people in poor countries. They live on the
edge. When you are living on a dollar a day it's a question of life and death."
Post September 11, he said there was more of an interest in
development issues but wanted to see whether this concern was
translated into action at a time when budgets in the west were coming
under pressure as a result of slow growth. Aid from rich countries to
poor countries was running at $50bn a year, he said, but the west was
spending seven times that amount on agricultural subsidies that
prevented products from poor nations being sold in the developed
world.
Even so, he said perceptions had changed since September 11. "I'm not
saying anything different from what I was saying two months ago. But
before when I talked about the need to care about cultures, when I
talked about the need to understand religions, it was not a widely
held view that these things were part of development. I don't think
that's the view today."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
End<{{{
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