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Include trade in development agenda, says World Bank chief

World Bank president James Wolfensohn has made out a strong case for including trade in the development agenda to ensure comprehensive quota-free, market access for developing countries.

"It's an issue which we very much believe is central to the issue of development. It doesn't make a lot of sense to help countries build their output and then deny them market access,'' he said while addressing a press conference in Washington yesterday.

He said the two-day spring meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, beginning on Sunday listed the issue of development, poverty, and trade as one of the main items on its agenda.

The objective was to ensure, with the cooperation of finance ministers of member countries, forward movement in the discussion on the subject.

''On the whole issue of trade and globalisation, which is likely to come up at this meeting, we will be commenting on the very special needs of the 81 or so countries which seem to be lagging in terms of adjustment of globalisation,'' he added.

He said he proposed to talk to the ministers ''about really that it is that we can do and, indeed, the world community can do to try and assist countries to join the global marketplace in a socially calm way,'' he added.

''The issue of globalisation is not an issue that I think we can either turn back or say is not there. The issue of global community is clearly with us and the question is one of adaptation and how it is that it can be properly dealt with for the developing countries in particular,'' he added.

The World Bank chief said he would discuss with the ministers about ''our overall strategy on poverty, and, in particular, moving from the World Bank report on poverty entitled Voices of the poor, which explained that the poor people were not looking for charity.

''They're looking for an opportunity. And they want equal treatment. What they don't have is the certainty of protection against violence, either externally, or for women inside the household,'' he added.

He also expressed concern at the proposed demonstration outside the meeting venue. ''I have said before, and I say again, that we're ready to consult and discuss on any issue with anybody at any time. I just regret it when that debate is forestalled because of an attempt to close down the meetings,'' Wolfensohn said.

The persistent failure to break the cycle of stagnation and poverty in the world's poorest countries represents the 'greatest failure in the 20th century,' IMF officials have said.

According to IMF economists, the global economic and financial conditions have improved dramatically during the past year, and the global income distribution across countries is 'somewhat less skewed' today than it was 25 years ago when weighted by population, largely on account of rapid growth in China and India.

'But this is no consolation for the large number of very poor - living on less than $ 1or less per day - that has remained stubbornly high in the range of 1.2 to 1.3 billion, about one-fifth of the world's population,' said the IMF in its semi-annual World Economic Outlook report.

'Moreover, per capita incomes have been regressing in absolute terms in a large number of countries during the past 25-30 years. As a result, the world is entering the 21st century with the largest divergence ever recorded between rich and poor,' said the 270-page report.

Michael Camdessus, who recently stepped down as IMF managing director, once described the widening income gaps within many countries and the gulf between the most affluent and most impoverished nations, as 'morally outrageous, economically wasteful, and potentially socially explosive.'

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