West is told to pay poor now

The Guardian ^ | September 26, 2002 | Charlotte Denny

[Tailgunner Joe]

Rich countries face "a moment of truth" over their plan to halve global poverty, which is endangered by turmoil in global stock markets and the threat of war against Iraq, the World Bank warned yesterday.

James Wolfensohn, the Bank's president, said the west must "put its money where its mouth is" and stump up the cash to meet the agreed target of halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015.

"The time has come to move from words to action to implement this new deal between rich countries and poor countries," he said.

Speaking to the Guardian, ahead of this week's IMF and World Bank annual meetings, Mr Wolfensohn said he feared that worries about the global outlook would distract attention from the plight of developing countries.

"If you find countries that are dirt poor, they are the places that extremists flourish. I personally believe that if we don't get rid of poverty we are not going to have peace."

Rich countries must open their highly protected markets to textiles and agricultural goods from the developing world, and stop subsidising its farmers, according to the Bank. Western countries pay out $350bn a year supporting agriculture, seven times what they spend on aid.

Mr Wolfensohn called on the west to come up with the extra money it promised for debt relief at a summit in Canada this year.

[goldstategop]

I'd point out to James Wolfensohn there is no correlation between poverty and terrorism. And I don't see how its our obligation to bail the Third World out of the consequences of decades of following failed socialist policies. What poor countries need to try is capitalism. Its too bad the World Bank doesn't practice what it preaches. Wolfensohn thinks handouts from the West will lift the world's poor up. Four decades of welfare haven't accomplished that in America. Just how he thinks more socialism is going to do now when it hasn't worked in the 20th century is a complete mystery to me.

[Tailgunner Joe]

World Bank Corruption May Exceed $100 Billion

[Freebird Forever]

agreed target of halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015

I wonder how many of the people in this group are America / Israel hating muslims?

Ya' know, there's more than one way to halve that number.