James Wolfensohn
James Wolfensohn
James David Wolfensohn, KBE, AOis an Australian-American lawyer, investment banker and economist who served as the ninth president of the World Bank Group...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth1 December 1933
CountryAustralia
issues poverty humans
The issue of poverty is not a statistical issue. It is a human issue.
two people dollars
We have three billion people, half the world's population today, living on less than two dollars a day.
past hands differences
The future is in our hands. We are not hapless bystanders. We can influence whether we have a planet of peace, social justice, equity, and growth or a planet of unbridgeable differences between peoples, wasted resources, corruption, and terror.
night eight people
What we need to do is increase the totality of money that is given to the poorest areas and then we can do more on prevention but we have crucial needs at the moment just to get people out of poverty and to get the eight hundred million people that go to bed at night hungry, give them some food and some hope.
loss skills culture
In this time of globalization, with all its advantages, the poor are the most vulnerable to having their traditions, relationships and knowledge and skills ignored and denigrated, and experiencing development with a great sense of trauma, loss and social disconnectedness.
change moving status-quo
If you're changing the status quo, whatever move you make is disrupting something else.
power bridges water
Well the specific role of the World Bank is to be ready with financial assistance immediately after this emergency takes place because you need to reconnect water, you need to reconnect power, you need roads, you need bridges, and that has to be done urgently.
country thinking talking
Today, you have 20 percent of the world controlling 80 percent of the Gross Domestic Product; you've got a $30 trillion (US) world economy, and $24 trillion of it is in the developed countries... These inequities can't exist. So if you are talking about systemic breakdown, I think you have to look in terms of social breakdown.
politics development ownership
Ownership is a sine qua non of sustainable development.
dream jobs violence
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.
play people looks
As you look at the flow of Muslim fundamentalism, or fundamentalism in various areas and various religions, they all play on the people who have very little.
horse winning outsiders
But when someone is on a winning horse, and everything looks wonderful, it's very hard as an outsider to persuade them something is wrong.
reality village becoming
The notion of the world as a village is becoming a reality.
issues poverty firsts
The first thing that you need to deal with is the issue of equity and poverty.