Quotes by James Wolfensohn - Page 1

You can't wish away poverty overnight.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Overnight
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Ownership is a sine qua non of sustainable development.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Wisdom
Politics
Development
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The notion of the world as a village is becoming a reality.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Notion
Reality
Village
World
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It is possible to have a public education system that works.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Public Education
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The issue of poverty is not a statistical issue. It is a human issue.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Issues
Poor
Poverty
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You can't compete globally unless you have appropriate communication skills.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Communication
Appropriate
Communication Skills
Skills
Compete
Globally
Unless
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The first thing that you need to deal with is the issue of equity and poverty.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Issues
Needs
Poverty
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If you're changing the status quo, whatever move you make is disrupting something else.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Change
Moving
Status Quo
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I'm not at all sure that Israel can determine what happens in Palestine, the Palestinian territories.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Determine
Palestine
Palestinian
Territories
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I think that so-called capitalism and trade is a very important element in giving people opportunity.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Capitalism
Opportunity Important People
Element
So-Called
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We have three billion people, half the world's population today, living on less than two dollars a day.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Dollars
People
Population
Two
Today World Day
Billion
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The poor people of the world tend to be the places that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups can recruit.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Al Qaeda
Poor People
Recruit
Terrorist
World People Poor
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Most people recognize that to create jobs is really the essential element in their drive against poverty.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Element
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Too many of the conflicts which are caused today are caused by the problems that emerge from people who are in poverty.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
People
Poverty
Today
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You need to have a secure Israel, which is very clear, and you need to have a Palestinian community that feels it can have hope.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Palestinian
Secure
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It's probably conventional wisdom now that you bring openness of markets only after the market has developed to a certain level.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Conventional
Conventional Wisdom
Openness
Certain Level
Markets
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I believe and still believe that the Chinese government puts great weight on the experience of the Bank in terms of development.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Chinese
Chinese Government
Development
Weight
Bank
Puts
Terms
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Horse
Looks
Winning
Persuade
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So the first thing you need to do about conflict is to prevent it, and the best way of preventing it is by dealing with the question of poverty.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Best Way
Conflict
Needs
Poverty
Way
Dealing
First Thing
Prevent
The First Thing
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Dream
Jobs
No Hope
Notion
Resources
Violence
Palestinians
Rid
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The only way really to influence countries, in terms of poverty, is to get them to change their policies and get them to understand what the issues are.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Policies
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My observation on most people in national governments is that they have very little interest in and very little knowledge of the multinational institutions.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Observation
Governments
Multinational
National Institutions
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Flow
Fundamentalism
Looks
People
Play
Religions
Look People Play
Muslim
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China never borrowed less than $3 billion a year during my tenure. They were the most significant client. They used the Bank not just for money but for the know-how.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Borrowed
Significant
Tenure
Bank
Billion
Client
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Rebuilding Afghanistan is not going to be solved by pouring billions in. Getting rid of the Taliban does not rid us of the problems of fundamentalism and instability.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Afghanistan
Billions
Fundamentalism
Instability
Pouring
Rebuilding
Taliban
Rid
Solved
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We have made a full frontal attack on corruption. The question is whether we can address the question of governance in developing countries and, particularly, corruption.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Developing
Developing Countries
Governance
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The interesting thing about debt in most cases is that you have to pay it back. So if you build an overhang of debt, it becomes more and more limiting in terms of the prospect that you have.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Cases
Interesting Thing
Limiting
Prospect
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I think that's one of the reasons for the Sarajevo conference, that Yugoslavia, Serbia, return to the family of nations because enduring peace can only come when you have Serbia within that framework.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Endure
Reason
Thinking
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When I travel, I make certain that I spend at least half of my time in the field. You have to get out to meet people that are in poverty, that are looking to improve their lives. That's something that you can't read in books.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
My Time
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I was deeply concerned then, and have become more concerned since, that unless we can deal with the questions of development and the questions of poverty, there's no way that we're going to have a peaceful world for our children.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Children
Concerned
Development
Peaceful
Peaceful World
Poverty
World Children Way
Deeply
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My view is to try and not demonize the Palestinians. I'm not denying that there are Palestinians who fire rockets and do terrible things; I know that that happens. But to get a fundamental solution, you have to have hope on both sides.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Both Sides
Rockets
Sides
Demonize
Palestinians
Solution
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I have travelled in the country enough to know that the concerns of villages in Rajasthan will be very different from the issues in the villages of Tamil Nadu. Anybody who makes a general remark about India probably doesn't know India.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Concerns
Remark
Travelled
Villages
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If you enter the World Bank office in Washington, D.C., you will see written on the left wall, 'The purpose of the World Bank is to fight poverty with passion.' I had it put up there because I wanted something that unites us as an institution.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
World Bank
Bank
Enter
Institution
Unites
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Bystanders
Hands
Past
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The Bank had never used the word 'corruption' at all until I got there, and the reason for that was, as the general counsel pointed out to me, that quite a number of our shareholders represented were not immune from corruption in their governments.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Immune
Shareholders
Bank
Counsel
Governments
Pointed
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Power
Assistance
Bridges
Financial
Financial Assistance
Ready
Water
World Bank
Bank
Emergency
Immediately
Reconnect
Roads
Role
Specific
Urgently
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Development
Loss
Skills
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If you want peace, you've got to deal with people; you don't just deal with objects. And whether they take it as a responsibility or not, the success or failure in Kosovo is going to be the success or failure of building, first, economic hope, and then trying to heal the damage that's been done.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
People
Responsibility
Trying
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Eight
Night
People
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I saw it with my own eyes: Israelis and Palestinians, arm in arm, walking off together and clearly pricing how you could get your truck to the top of the line or get it through at all. It was an absolutely transparently corrupt system at the border - you had to buy your truck's way across. I thought it was a disgrace.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Disgrace
Pricing
Truck
Arm
Eyes Together Your
Border
Corrupt
Israelis
Palestinians
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It's going to be possible to rebuild the physical aspects of Kosovo. I was there recently, and you get a sense of the destruction of homes. Infrastructure and the countryside is relatively untouched. I think the biggest problem will not be the physical reconstruction; it will be the emotional and mental reconstruction.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Home
Emotional
Thinking
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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. What happened on September 11 was that anybody who thought there was a wall now knows that there is no wall.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Divided
My Generation
Poor People
Relevance
September
Thinking World People
Developed Countries
Round
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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.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Country
Talking
Thinking
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First of all, the people left, and they're now coming back. What we have to do is try and help them regain their lives, and the cause of the need for the immediate money is to establish some system of government. You must remember that Kosovo was never self-standing, and so we have to create that government structure, and that's, in fact, what Bernard Kushner is doing on behalf of the secretary-general.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Helping
People
Trying
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Kosovo is an agricultural economy particularly. It also has a couple of good power stations that exported power, and the big cooperative which they had there in the mining field is no longer functioning. So there is no immediate employment available for people in the industrial sector. All that needs to be going. But you will remember that it is part of Yugoslavia, and much of its trade and its dependence was on Serbia and Montenegro.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Couple
People
Remember
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I was told 20% of the kids in Kosovo didn't know where their parents were. This is a dreadful problem. A woman that I was with, a doctor, had seen her house destroyed and her uncle, who was a professor, taken out and shot. She's there, anxious now, trying to build relations with the Serbs, and said that she was trying to do this, but she was underlying how difficult it is with these images in your mind. And I think that is what has caused this terrible bloodshed that occurred just days ago in relation to the Serbs that were shot. I think that there is a need for a period of healing.
James Wolfensohn / Lawyer
Kids
Healing
Taken
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James Wolfensohn Quotes - Page 1

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