A new global job with a global responsibility

A new global job with a global responsibility

U.S. President George W. Bush has nominated deputy secretary
of defense, Paul D. Wolfowitz, for the post of president of the
World Bank. While a confirmation is almost a sure thing, the
nomination has stirred controversy because of Wolfowitz's role in
President Bush's global war on terror, including the invasion of
Iraq. Wolfowitz, who served as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia in
the late 1980s, received The Jakarta Post's correspondent in
Washington, Yenni Djahidin, at his office in The Pentagon to talk
about his new job. Here are excerpts of the interview:

Why do you think you're the right person for the job?

I believe very passionately in the bank's mission. I have a
lot of experience managing public sector organizations as well as
one substantial academic organization. It's the kind of
management experience that is particularly important in an
institution like the World Bank. Having diplomatic experience is
helpful because you are doing a lot of diplomacy to build
consensus because that is the only way you can lead an
organization like that.

Finally, and by no means least, thanks in no small measure to
the time I spent in Indonesia both when I was ambassador, but
also before (I) visited often when I was assistant secretary of
state and again as dean of SAIS (School of Advanced International
Studies) at Johns Hopkins University. I've seen first hand what
poverty is like in a developing country. I've seen successful
development policies, successful contributions from international
donors and I've also seen some failures that are the result of
bad governance.

I should hasten to say, because everybody knows how much I
like Indonesia, (that) this is a global job with global
responsibilities, and with a special priority for Africa because
Africa depends so much on the bank, and the bank plays such a big
role in Africa. In part, that's because some of the most horrible
conditions of poverty in the world, compounded by the severe
health epidemics, are to be found in Africa. But it is a global
job and, as one of the Asian directors of the bank reminded me,
there are still more poor people in Asia than anywhere else in
the world.

How would eradicate poverty in the world?

There is no one specific solution. It's a matter of pulling
together the different pieces that go into a successful strategy,
and the different parts of development that you have to focus on.
Since my nomination was announced, I am already getting an
enormous education in the complexity of the problems that I
didn't know a lot about before. The more you hear, the more you
realize there's no "one size fits all solution".

What is your vision for the bank in the next 5-10 years?

A World Bank that can lead the world in achieving the very
ambitious Millennium Development Goals. If I could contribute in
even approaching that vision, I would feel very proud. It
requires mobilizing the resources of the developed world. It
requires applying those resources as effectively as possible with
the developing countries. It requires an understanding of how
important it is that successful development has to have
indigenous roots.

How do you deal with corruption issue around the world?

Jim Wolfensohn has done a remarkable job in his 10 years as
president of the bank, and he has set some very important, new
directions, and one of them has been his focus on transparency,
accountability, good governance.

You have experienced first-hand in Indonesia what damage it
can do when people don't pay attention to that part of the
development equation. It's also a very complex problem, and there
are different kinds of corruption; different degrees of
corruption. I don't know of a country that doesn't have
corruption problems, including my own. And it's not something you
can expect to eliminate entirely, but I certainly think it has to
be a major concern of a development assistance institution like
the World Bank to reduce it as much as possible.

How do you make sure that aid is not corrupted?

I know they (World Bank officials) have been thinking of how
you can do it and I frankly want to get a much better idea of
where they are at and how they think it can be done and see if I
can take them further. Too often we've seen where the world has
been generous to countries with economic assistance and none of
that has gotten to the people it's intended for because it's been
basically drained off by inadequate institutions. What you have
to do is get people to understand that if they want their
countries to grow and succeed, it's not going to be international
assistance that's going to make it possible. They are going to
have to take some of the difficult policy decisions, political
decisions, to control corruption. That part of it is persuading
key officials in the relevant countries that it's much better to
provide the conditions in which the whole pie can grow and
everybody to benefit from it rather than to think that the best
way to benefit is to grab a piece of the pie for themselves. The
good thing is that there seems to be a consensus now that I don't
think existed 10 years ago that this is not a minor problem and
it is not just a political problem, but it is central to
successful economic development.

How independent will you be from the Bush administration?

If I am confirmed, I will be an international civil servant. I
will be the president of a multilateral organization with 184
member nations. I am very aware that I am accountable to a
different group of people than I am in my present job. Most of my
career has been in the U.S. government, accountable ultimately to
the President and the Congress. On the other hand, I spent seven
years as the dean of an academic faculty where someone said the
organization chart is the faculty reports to the dean, who
reports to the faculty. It is, in a small version, consensus-
oriented institution. The job of the president of the bank is to
pull together the most effective possible consensus in support of
the goal that everyone agrees on, which is reducing poverty and
promoting economic development.

And that's a good thing, that you start from a general
agreement on a common goal. It doesn't mean there's not a lot to
argue about, but it's a very important starting point. You can
always bring people back to ask the question, "are you really
arguing for something you believe is going to help the poor
people of the world or does it just happen to support your own
political agenda." And I would say that to my own, to the U.S.
government, as well as to other governments. I would not take
this job if I didn't think I could serve all the clients of the
bank.

Will you use your new position to promote democracy around the
world?

I think people know what I think on that subject, but I think
I'll be more effective if I concentrate on those things that lead
to poverty reduction and economic development. At the same time,
you can't make a simple distinction when you get to the area of
corruption, you are talking about problems that affect democracy
and economic development. So the institutional basis of economic
development is important, but I think the things that the World
Bank president can advocate for most effectively are getting the
donor countries to be more generous, getting the developed
countries to open their markets, getting the developing countries
to strengthen their own institutions against corruption, so aid
is used effectively. Those are the kinds of things that if I can
focus on as president of the World Bank and really make a
difference. Those things will have a positive effect on other
things that I care about. But my experience over and over again
is if you want to lead an organization effectively, you have to
figure out what its comparative strengths are and what its
mission is and focus on accomplishing those things, not do
everything that's good for the world.