FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT
World Bank engages civil society
> BY ALEXANDRA SIMOU
Copyright © 2002 by The Earth Times. All rights reserved

In an interview with The Earth Times, Karlsson spoke about his expectations of the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey. "I can say with some perspective that the Monterrey conference is really a unique conference," he said. "Every conference is perceived to be unique when it happens. But this one really is."

Karlsson said that, for once, the comprehensive understanding of development needs reached in the Nineties was being followed by the logical next step of finding ways to finance them, and that the United Nations and the major lending agencies were all actively participating in the process. "So, you see, it looks like the world community is trying to manage itself a bit better, it's getting its act together," he said. "And I have argued all through the Nineties that unless the UN, the World Bank and other multilateral organizations come together, we are not going to pry open the coffers for increased aid."

It was World Bank estimates which helped establish the additional foreign aid required to reach the Millennium Development Goals set forth by UN Secretary General Kofi A. Annan. These are to halve world poverty by 2015 through additional aid of between $40 and $60 billion a year-provided countries reform their policies to make the additional spending effective.

Karlsson said that the World Bank had started working with the UN and individual governments nearly two years ago to ensure that the Monterrey draft declaration would reflect a common and coherent language for governments as well as multilateral organizations including the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. Referring to the negative effects of corruption, Karlsson said that the World Bank has worked with countries to fight corruption on a very concrete level for many years.

"We have a program right here, at Monterrey Tech [the Monterrey Technological Insitute]," he said, "that helps mayors and public officials in Latin America. It's Monterrey Tech that grants it. We're already training 15,000 of them in their spare time. They link up by video conferencing. Why is that linked to corruption? Transparency in local budgets. This morning I met with some 30 mayors from all over Mexico, including the mayor of Chiapas who was saying how he was winning the fight against corruption through this training." Karlsson said the Bank had also been working to strengthen its partnership with civil society for many years because it had found that engaging civil society groups in policy dialogue improves local ownership and the implementation of the development process. He added that it would be inconceivable today to conduct any meaningful discussion of development issues without the participation of civil society.

A sense of public responsibility, Karlsson said, exercised through accountable public institutions, could create a framework "in which the enormously creative mechanisms of the market economy can create growth bottom-up. That can change the lives of people, give them power over their future. That combination I would say is a common ground that is much stronger than the sometimes intense debate about development would make you believe. The Monterrey consensus goes quite some way toward using 21st century language in describing it, and we've got a basis. Now then, let's move."

Karlsson stressed the trade liberalization momentum that had emerged from the Doha WTO ministerial conference should be maintained, "because if market access doesn't become real, the rest is a sham. Unless the developing countries can earn the hundreds of billions of extra income on a sustainable basis year after year, they will continue to be dependent. We don't want that." He added that the international community should support developing countries by lowering trade barriers, but that developing countries also must decide to open markets to one another.

Bilateral and multilateral organizations should do a lot more to make sure they focus on poverty reduction, harmonize their procedures and make it more simple for the countries to implement their poverty reduction strategies, Karlsson said. "We're [at the World Bank] in the middle of the first evaluation of whether this comprehensive approach to development under the authentic leadership of countries is making a difference. And I think that if you ask the countries themselves, if you ask civil society, if you ask the hundreds of task managers in the aid system whether this is a better way of promoting development than before, you'll hear 'absolutely.' But we're still learning. If you ask me what the next step is, I'd say 'continue to learn'."