YouSaid · the spoken record

Bruce

lines on the record
8
first
2011-05-18
most recent
2011-05-18
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

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  1. “Only recently, we began to activate a project that will support improvements in governance in the mining sector. I spoke earlier about our concern about rising food prices, particularly in the context of elections. I would point out that we have an operation that is a social action fund of about $100 million, which will be very helpful in assisting Congolese in dealing with some of these food price increases. We are there for the long haul. We welcome this discourse. We hope that everyone will also stay focused on the longer-term issues and the longer-term engagement.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  2. “My final point, which is implicit in all that I have said so far, is that the kind of engagement that many speakers have referred to in their statements and that the World Bank embraces is one that needs to stay the course for the long haul. I just want to assure the Council that the World Bank, as well as the Africa region that I represent, are strongly committed to that long-term process. Right now, we have a portfolio of about $2.2 billion. Together with many members of the Council, we are providing support to the processes of institution-building. We are focused very much on providing basic services, including access to electricity, education and health outcomes. We are very much involved - together with many Council members - in the work on governance.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  3. “That is worth watching as a complicating factor as we approach the elections. My fifth point is to underscore what others have said about gender violence and to stand squarely with those who are challenging the Government to do more. Here, I also want to associate the World Bank with the comments made by my colleague from the United Nations Development Programme, which point to other actions that the Government can take to help to reduce gender disparity. We know, for example, that there are some laws that limit what women can do without their husband's permission in terms of routine legal processes. We would argue that such measures and laws are standing in the way of progress in the area of gender equality.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  4. “We know from experience across Africa and elsewhere that elections are often associated with deterioration in economic governance, and we want to encourage the Government of the Democratic Republic to buck that trend, so to speak, and to continue the course of fiscal discipline. The second related risk that we see, particularly in this context, is that if current trends in food prices and oil prices are anything to go by, when the elections are held we could be facing a situation where there is considerable pressure in places like Kinshasa, where we are seeing cereal prices rising quite substantially. For example, whereas inflation during 2010 was about 10 per cent, we have already noted that prices have risen over 16 per cent in the first quarter of 2011. Cereal prices, in particular, have risen 33 per cent.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  5. “Our estimates of the 20 best-performing countries shows that the 20 fastest of them took 17 years to get the military out of politics, 20 years to achieve functioning bureaucratic quality, and 27 years to bring corruption under reasonable control. The message of those findings is that that takes time. It is a generational effort and it is important that all of us stay the course. My fourth point is not only to embrace what many Council members have said about the importance of fair and timely elections, but also to identify two particular risks that have not been mentioned so far.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  6. “In the report, we saw that countries that were able to develop strong institutions were able to avoid repeated cycles of war, which were quite pervasive in many African countries. But what we also saw was that countries that failed to do so - that were involved in the abuse of human rights and where there was low Government effectiveness - were 30 to 40 per cent more likely to slip back into violence. So we want to encourage the progress that we have already seen and ask the Government to stay the course. My third point, which is a very interesting one to us, is that this institutional development that we have been talking about is something that takes a long time.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  7. “We see improvements in education and health outcomes, albeit from a low base, and we see improving results in terms of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Having said that, we will soon be releasing a report that points to areas of concern in terms of the dividends of peace, and I would like to highlight one in particular, which is what we call the "missing middle". The small and medium-sized enterprises sector, which we know is very much involved in creating jobs globally, is an area that requires attention. That is my first point. Secondly, I would like to embrace what many participants have said about the importance of institutional development. This year, for the first time, the World Bank released the World Development Report 201]: Conflict, Security and Development.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source

  8. “We at the World Bank are deeply honoured to be able to participate in this discussion. We identify with many of the statements that have been made already, but wish to briefly add six points. First, we would like to confirm that the evidence indicates that peace and improvements in security have yielded economic benefits. During the period from 1996 to 2000, the years of war, for example, gross domestic product (GDP) actually contracted by about 4 per cent. In the period since then, we have seen GDP not only in positive terrain, but increasing. As recently as 2010, the GDP growth figure was about 5 to 6 per cent. So we see continued improvement. Underlying that is good news about improvements in agriculture and improvements at the top, if you like, of the hierarchy in terms of large companies.”

    2011-05-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6539 (2011) · source