The Challenges of Global Development

Speech by the President of The World Bank, Dr Paul Wolfowitz, at the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Germany:

... Korea is a country which, like Germany, has achieved remarkable progress over a short span of time. Of course, Germany did it by rebuilding on the foundations of an already successful economy. The Koreans started literally from nothing 50 years ago. Indeed, only 40 years ago, Korea stood where many countries in Sub‑Saharan Africa stand today. Back then, Korea - now the world’s 10th largest economy - was one of the poorest countries in the world. Some observers looked at that small poor country, and they said, to use an English slang expression, that Korea was a hopeless basket case.

There’s an expression in English - I do not know if you have it in German - Oriental fatalist. It used to be heard quite commonly. It expressed the view that in the Orient, in the Far East, life had been miserable for centuries, and it would continue to be miserable for centuries in the future. There was no reason to hope, there was no reason to work hard, there was no reason to invest, nothing was going to change.

You hear that phrase much less often today, because the Oriental fatalists were wrong.

Today as I said, South Korea is the 10th largest economies in the world. It is the most wired economy in the world. It is a country where 100% of the schools are connected to the Internet. It is a full member of the OECD. For every Afro-pessimist today, there was an Oriental fatalist 40 years ago. And I strongly believe that Africans can and will prosper if they and we confront the development challenges that have long held back stability and growth in that part of the world. And if international donors and most importantly, the private sector support countries that are creating the right environment for growth ....

Read on here.