News & Broadcast - Opening Remarks: Opening Press Conference Spring Meetings

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

World Bank President, Robert B. Zoellick

April 19, 2012

Welcome and thanks to all of you for coming.

This marks my last Spring Meetings as the President of the World Bank Group.

So I’d like to begin with a word of thanks:

To the Ministers who have supported us and worked with us;

To our Executive Board, who have labored hard to help our management team to modernize this important multilateral institution; 

To the excellent senior management team that I’ve been proud to help build and to lead; and

To the World Bank Group staff in Washington and around the world:  They’re motivated, they’re committed, they want to make a difference, they are and a tremendous asset, and drawing the best from now 170 countries.

This has been a pretty busy five years.

I suppose my tenure at the WBG has had three phases:

A turnaround from a time of some trouble;

Quickly moving into faster, more flexible, and large scale support for our client countries across food, fuel, and financial crises -- in financial terms alone, about a quarter of a trillion dollars; and

And the start of the modernization of the World Bank Group for the future.

That ongoing modernization effort will be a large part of my presentation to the Development Committee later this week and my discussions with our Governors.

With the first large recapitalization of the IBRD in over 20 years, and two record-breaking IDA replenishments totaling more than $90 billion, I am pleased to turn over a well-resourced Bank with a AAA rating.

Yet we always need to think ahead about how to mobilize resources -- for the growing interest in IFC and the private sector development; for the poorest; and for the changing needs of our middle income clients, which are still home to three quarters of those living under $2/day.

Our modernization agenda is driven by our focus on clients, listening to their priorities, as opposed to an old top-down approach. 

And modernization involves a rigorous focus on results, openness, and accountability.

So our initiatives for open information, open data, and open access to knowledge may turn out to be the most important legacy of the past five years.

These steps are key to democratizing development.

And these steps lay the foundation for expanding social accountability, fighting corruption, and building better governance.

Last year I proposed that the World Bank and others should recognize that investments in civil society and good governance are as vital as investments in roads, factories, and clinics.

So I’ll be pleased to announce later today the formation of a new Global Partnership for Social Accountability that will provide support to civil society organizations in their work on social accountability.

Now much of what you’ll hear over the next few days will deal with the ongoing shock waves of the financial crisis – issues of macroeconomic stability, fiscal and monetary policies.

That’s certainly important.

But it’s not enough.

Countries – both developing and developed – need to focus on structural reforms that will be the drivers of future growth. Otherwise, the world will keep stumbling along.

The WBG will be emphasizing that structural growth agenda.

Structural reforms and changing growth models fit with our recent major reports – such as China 2030 and the Golden Growth Report that looked at Europe.

You will also encounter structural growth in our priorities for:

Infrastructure, especially Public Private Partnerships;

Social Safety Nets, to protect human capital in a volatile and uncertain world;

Gender, so that countries gain the growth opportunities from empowering all their people;

And financial inclusion, including at these meetings, a first of its kind measurement of access to financial services, showing that three quarters of the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 /day are shut out of access to banking.

Developing countries have provided two thirds of global growth over the past five years.

These are no longer charity cases; they are vital to the world economy.

But of course they face huge challenges, too.

So it’s the WBG’s aim to keep focusing the world’s economic leaders growth, not just stability; on human safety nets, not just financial safety nets; and on modernizing multilateralism so that all 188 of our shareholders can work together for their common interest.

Finally, I had an opportunity to talk to Jim Kim after his selection as my successor.

We will have a chance to meet shortly after the Spring Meetings on the transition.

I think he’ll do a great job.

I wish him and all others associated with the World Bank Group every success.

I am pleased to take your questions.

News & Broadcast - Opening Remarks: Opening Press Conference Spring Meetings