 Good morning everybody. Welcome. We're delighted you're here. Isn't it a splendid day? Oh gosh, what a lovely day. All of a sudden the cherry blossoms are out. They're greeting all of us today. It just feels so nice. Thank you. Before we begin, when we have public events, we start with a little bit of a safety announcement. I'm the responsible safety officer here today. And so if anything happens, please follow my instructions. The exits are right here in front of us. The emergency escape is down right on that corner. We're going to go outside and we'll meet across the street in that lovely park under the cherry blossoms. But please follow me if we have to do something. Let me just, I'll be very brief because we want to hear Dr. Kim. This is a remarkable man who has done exceptional things with his still short life. I can't believe everything that he's been doing. And now he's taking on probably one of the most audacious goals possible, which is to eliminate extreme poverty in the world by 2030. You know, there are so many problems in Washington today. So we're obsessed with them, whether it's the Iranian deal or whether it's ISIS or something. But here we have a genuinely inspirational opportunity to focus on a problem. And I can't tell you how grateful I am that someone of Dr. Kim's talent and energy is willing to lead all of us into a new consciousness about what's possible. It's not about the problems that we're dealing with. It's the opportunities that we have in our future. And I would like to say thank you to him for leading this effort. And we need to get right on with his program. So would you with your warm applause welcome Dr. Kim. Good morning. Thank you, John, for having us here and for that kind introduction. Thanks everyone for being here and for those on the webcast. Thank you for watching. And this is the second time I've spoken in this beautiful room and I'm very, very happy to be here again. Before I begin though, I want to pause and remember the 147 students at Garrison University College in Kenya who were senselessly murdered just a few days ago. Schools and universities are sacred grounds and all who study there should be safe. As a former university president, this hit very close to home. And I will actually be talking about conflict, fragility and violence a little bit later. But just 15 years into the new millennium, economic development in poor countries and emerging markets is truly at a critical crossroads. Much of the attention has been on the near horizon concerns about the slow moving global economy, uncertainties over the price of oil and conflicts from the Ukraine to the Middle East to parts of Africa. But when we look at the longer term picture, we see that the decisions made this year will have an enormous impact on the lives of billions of people across the world for generations to come. 2015 is the most important year for global development in recent memory. In July, world leaders will gather in Addis Ababa to discuss how we'll finance our development priorities in the years ahead. In September, world leaders will come together at the United Nations to establish the Sustainable Development Goals, a group of targets and goals set for 2030. And in December, world leaders will gather again in Paris to work out an agreement based on government commitments to lessen the severe short and long term risks of climate change. At the same time, we've witnessed the emergence of a major new player in development, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank led by China, now with more than 50 countries and regions signing on as members. With the right environment, labor and procurement standards, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank established by the BRICS countries can become great new forces in economic development of poor countries in emerging markets. We at the World Bank Group see these development banks as potentially very strong allies in tackling the enormous challenge of bringing much needed infrastructure to the developing world. Our mission at the World Bank Group is defined by two goals, to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity among the 40% poorest in low and middle income countries. These goals are ambitious and as we think about the new development banks, we have to admit that there's more than enough work to go around. By 2030, we'll likely need 40% more energy and face a 40% shortfall of fresh water, pressures that may well be further accelerated by climate change. We estimate the developing world will need an additional 1 to 1.5 trillion dollars every year to be invested in infrastructure, roads, bridges, railways, airports, energy plants and increasingly desalination facilities. If the world's multilateral banks, including the new ones, can form alliances, work together and support development that addresses these challenges, we will all benefit, especially the poor and most vulnerable. It's our hope, indeed, our expectation that these new institutions will join the world's multilateral development banks and our private sector partners on a shared mission to promote economic growth that helps the poorest. I will do everything in my power to find innovative ways to work with these banks. Next week, during the spring meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund here in Washington, I will continue my discussions with Chinese and other officials about these exciting potential collaborations. Our ambitions for economic development couldn't be higher. We're no longer talking about billions of dollars for economic development. We're talking about trillions of dollars, which means that we must be creative and use all our resources to leverage the much needed private sector investment to build infrastructure and create jobs. The decisions we make this year and the alliance we form in the years ahead will determine whether we have a chance to reach our goal of ending extreme poverty in just 15 years. The good news is that the world has made substantial progress already. In 1990, when the population was 5.2 billion people, 36% of people lived in extreme poverty. Today, with a world population of 7.3 billion people, an estimated 12% live in extreme poverty. Over 25 years, we've gone from nearly 2 billion people living in extreme poverty to fewer than 1 billion, but we still have nearly 1 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day. Few of us can even imagine what that's like. Let's remember what poverty is. Poverty is 2.5 billion people not having access to financial services like bank accounts. Poverty is 1.4 billion people without access to electricity. Poverty is having to put your children to bed at night without food. And poverty is not going to school because in order to survive, everyone in the family needs to make a few cents every day. Some say it's impossible to end extreme poverty, especially in just 15 years, but we know it's possible. We know in part because of our past success and because we've learned from years of experience about what's worked in particular contexts and what's not. Later in the year, I'll talk in depth about strategies to boost prosperity for the bottom 40% especially in middle income countries. But today, I want to talk about a broad strategy to lift nearly a billion people out of extreme poverty and into the modern world. Inside the World Bank group, for the past 50 years, we've continuously distilled and analyzed our global experience in fighting poverty. As a result, our advice to governments has evolved over time. We now know that our strategic advice must evolve even more. Our strategy to end extreme poverty based on the best global knowledge available, now available, can be summed up in just three words. Grow, invest and ensure. Let me talk about each one. First, grow. The world economy needs to go faster and grow more sustainably. It needs to grow in a way that ensures that the poor receive a greater share of the benefits of that growth. We can reach the end of extreme poverty only if we mark a path today toward a more robust and inclusive growth that is frankly unparalleled in modern times. Decades of experience taught us that economic growth is the primary driver of increased personal income and poverty reduction. Sustaining growth requires macroeconomic stability in the form of low inflation, manageable debt levels, and reliable exchange rates. Government policies also must prioritize growth in sectors that increase the incomes of the poor. The World Bank group will continue to support governments and make investments in a broad variety of areas in the fight against extreme poverty. For instance, in countries with great amounts of mineral wealth, governments can encourage pro-poor growth by investing in improved education systems and the development of more diversified economies. In most of the developing world, though, efforts to end extreme poverty will require us to focus on boosting agricultural productivity. Despite the massive global migration to urban areas, 70% of the world's extreme poor still live in rural villages. They're mostly farmers or working informal jobs providing services to rural populations. Our experience in China shows that in poorer economies, growth in agriculture is four times more powerful in lifting people out of poverty than growth in manufacturing and services. But how can countries follow China's example? It depends on the local circumstances. Sometimes it's just a matter of giving farmers more control over how and what they produce. This is what Vietnam did during the Duy Muay economic renovation in the late 1980s. Over the next three decades, over the following three decades, Vietnam became a top exporter of rice, coffee, and tea, and its poverty rate fell from 57% to 5%. Helping farmers improve yields, it requires increasing access to better seeds, water, electricity, and markets. According to one study in Bangladesh, six years after constructing 3,000 kilometers of roads to connect communities to markets, household incomes increased by an average of 74%. Promoting growth in agriculture also depends in part on the integrity of the global food system. At next week's spring meetings, we'll be releasing a new discussion paper to develop a strong food system, one that raises the incomes of the poorest, provides adequate nutrition, and at the same time, combats climate change. Now that's the growth part of the strategy. The second part of the strategy is to invest. And by that, I mean investing in people, especially through education and health. The opportunity to get children off to a good start happens just once. Investments made in children early in life bring far greater returns than those made later on. Poor nutrition and disease can have lifelong implications for mental and physical health, educational achievement, and adult earnings. Clean water and sanitation facilities, both at home and in school, also have a substantial impact on future professional opportunities to help children avoid infections that cause developmental disabilities and ensure girls' consistent school attendance even after the beginning of menstruation. Investment girls and women in particular are important because they have a multiplier effect on the well-being of the extreme poor. When empowered through education, mothers have healthier children. And when they have financial resources, they're more likely to invest in the next generation. In schools, we also must set clear learning standards. The level of learning among young people today in many countries is alarming. Over 50 percent of young people in Kenya who have completed six years of schooling cannot read a simple sentence. Over 70 percent of children completing primary school in Mozambique do not have basic numeracy skills. Those low achievement levels have devastating implications for when people look for jobs. We know that using new technology can help transform educational outcomes. For example, Bridge International Academies uses software and tablets in schools that teach over 100,000 students in Kenya and Uganda. We were an early investor in that program. After two years, students' average scores for reading and math have risen high above their public school peers. And the cost per student at Bridge Academies is just $6 per student per month. One of the most effective ways to encourage investment in the extreme poor and improve health and educational service delivery is accountability. One study in Tanzania found that doctors in public clinics spend an average of only 29 minutes in any day seeing patients. According to other research in India, primary teachers in public schools are absent 25 percent of the time and primary care doctors are absent 40 percent of the time. Governments can help poor people monitor and discipline service providers for these failures and also create incentives for public employees to do better. Those that do so will reap far greater returns on their human capital investments. The final part of this strategy is to ensure. Now this means that governments must provide social safety nets as well as build systems to protect against disasters and the rapid spread of disease. National social assistance and insurance schemes protect against setbacks like illness and unemployment and promote growth in human capital development. For instance, cash transfer programs can be substantial and cost effective. Brazil's Bolsa Familia has cut extreme poverty by 28 percent in a decade for a cost of just about 0.5 percent of GDP. Despite successes like this, 870 million people living in poverty still do not have any access to social assistance. Another critical element of insurance is protecting people against catastrophic risks. Examples include universal health care schemes, efforts to improve the quality of health care services, disaster risk management, and financing tools like catastrophic bonds or drawdown facilities. Now, for those not in finance, this may sound technical, but the so-called cat bonds, the catastrophic bonds, are very effective. They make funding immediately available to countries responding to natural disasters. Similar approaches should be used to protect against pandemics. Ebola revealed the shortcomings of international and national systems to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks, but it also showed us that the poor are likely to suffer the most from pandemics. The World Bank Group has been working with partners on a new concept that would provide much needed rapid response financing in the face of an outbreak. The idea behind a pandemic emergency facility is to mobilize and leverage public sector resources through public funding and through market and private insurance mechanisms. In the event of an outbreak, countries would receive rapid disbursements of funding, which would in turn help contain outbreaks, save lives, and protect economies. Now, there's no single blueprint for countries in their efforts to end extreme poverty. But the strategy I just outlined suggests that there are clear priorities for the future. First, agricultural productivity must increase. Second, we have to build infrastructure that provides access to energy, irrigation, and markets. Third, we must promote freer trade that specifically provides greater access to markets for the poor and enables entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries to grow their businesses and create jobs. Fourth, we have to invest in health and education, especially for women and children. And finally, we have to implement the social safety nets and provide social insurance initiatives that protect against impact of natural disasters and pandemics. Nine months ago, the World Bank Group started one of the most ambitious reorganizations in our history. We knew we needed to restructure in order to meet the evolving needs of low and middle income countries. In a world where capital is much more easily available, we needed to emphasize our greatest strengths, and that is the ability to marry our vast knowledge to innovate of financing to deliver programs that have the greatest impact on the poorest. Our new global practices, cross-cutting solutions areas, and regional units are working closely with governments to develop customized poverty reduction programs. These are based on analysis of a wide range of local factors, including demography and the location of people living in extreme poverty. Our aim is to help countries translate global experience into practical knowledge and solve their most difficult problems. We know that ending extreme poverty will be extraordinarily difficult. In fact, the closer we get to our goal, the more difficult it will be. The most persistent poverty will be in fragile environments. In five years, we expect that more than half the world's extreme poor will live in conflict-affected areas. Conflict, as we know, and we've seen over and over, can have devastating effects on our efforts to fight poverty. Poverty itself can also create a fertile landscape for conflict. For example, where people feel excluded from progress due to joblessness, discrimination, or corruption, they may take up arms. These factors, for example, made it easier for extremists in the Middle East and Africa to recruit for their cause. More violence destroys buildings, bridges, schools, clinics, and, most importantly, lives. This destruction, of course, causes even more poverty. We can help break this vicious cycle and promote security if we implement development policies and programs that promote growth, invest in human capital, and ensure people against risks that can plunge them into poverty. Initiatives to strengthen institutions are going to also be very important. Governments must be more accountable to citizens and work to reduce arbitrary treatment at the hands of security forces and the demands for bribes from poor people. This, too, will help minimize the likelihood of violent conflict and eliminate drivers of poverty. When conflict persists, the hard truth is that poverty reduction is extremely difficult. When the fighting stops, though, progress is possible. Over the last two years, I've made three trips with the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Africa, to the Great Lakes region, to the Sahel, and to the Horn of Africa. Our purpose was to take advantage of these opportunities when the fighting stops. In these three regions, we've worked with partners to collectively move billions of dollars to promote regional development. We've taken steps to increase cross-border political and economic cooperation, which we hope will make conflict less likely. We've also increased investments that will benefit the poor and most vulnerable, reducing the drivers of fragility. Our partners have included the European Union, the African Development Bank, the African Union, and the Islamic Development Bank. This kind of collaboration is what gives us hope and a fighting chance to end extreme poverty. Still, it won't be easy. Development has never been easy. We find encouragement, though, on the record of the past 25 years. We've reduced extreme poverty by two-thirds and shown that great gains can be made to the strategy of grow, invest, and ensure it. In the fight to end extreme poverty, many countries have succeeded in taking something that seemed possible and made it possible. The end of extreme poverty is no longer just a dream. The opportunity is before us. Governments of the world must seize this moment. Our private sector partners must step up. The World Bank Group, our Multilateral Development Bank partners, and our new partners on the horizon must also seize this moment. We have to now collaborate with real conviction and distinguish our generation as the one that ended extreme poverty. We're the first generation in human history that actually can end extreme poverty. This is the great challenge and the great opportunity. We will be guided by a half-century of evidence and practice. It's doable. It's in our sights. And it will be, I believe, humankind's most significant and memorable achievement. We can end extreme poverty, but the final push must begin right now. Thank you very much. I wish I could start every day with that. It just makes you feel like your day is worth living. Thank you, Dr. Kim. Folks, just I have to tell you that Dr. Kim has a board meeting, so he's going to have to leave. It's a hard stop at 10.25, so I'm in the realities of fighting poverty. You have to go to board meetings. You've got to go to board meetings. So I will be ruthless to the, and I'm just going to, I'll moderate to bring questions out, but I'd like to start with one question if I may. Sure. Dr. Kim, and that is, you know, when you said that this isn't about spending billions of dollars, this is spending trillions of dollars. Now, if you're talking about trillions, you're talking about the private sector, the profit-seeking private sector. Governments usually know how to work with the nonprofit sector, the private sector, but they don't really know how to work effectively with the profit-seeking. What are your thoughts about how you're going to establish this partnership? If you just look at the numbers. So, John, you know, official development assistance, the foreign aid, was about $130 billion last year. And so, you know, all of us, the multilateral development banks were sort of part of that world. And if you add up every dollar that the multilateral development banks can provide, it's somewhere in the order of $180 billion to $200 billion plus. But we're talking about $1 to $1.5 trillion just in the developing countries, and so there's no way to get there without the private sector. Now, you know, it's a very difficult time, and capital now is, without question, beginning to move out of the emerging markets. And in order to be able to reach this goal, we're going to have to be much more clever about how we utilize the extremely valuable grant-based official development assistance that countries provide and link it to the kinds of investments that we know will be the creator of jobs and our path to ending poverty. And so, how do you do that? Well, one of the things we're trying to do, and one of the papers that we'll be presenting at the spring meetings next week, is one in which all of us, all of the multilateral development banks and the IMF, we sat down together and said, okay, let's look at all the different sources of financing for development. Let's put them all together. And that's really, I think, strategically about how we use it most effectively. So, if you look at all the different sources, you start really with improved domestic resource mobilization. You've got, you know, we've got to help countries collect taxes in a more fair and reasonable way. That's got to be on the table. And, you know, I was in London, you know, literally paying tribute to the UK government and Prime Minister Cameron for sticking with this pledge of providing 0.7% of gross national income to development. But there were a lot of criticisms inside the UK, and it's really remarkable that they stood up under those criticisms and kept going. One of them was, why should we taxpayers provide aid to countries that themselves don't collect taxes, especially from the rich? This is a question we put it on the table. But one of the things we're learning is that the synergy between the public and private sector are part of the great hope going forward. And for us, we focus specifically on supporting the small and medium enterprises in developing countries that can create the kind of jobs that will lift people out of poverty. But it's tricky. It's a very complicated business getting that right. Even within our own organization, you know, we have people who are very focused in the public sector and very focused on the private sector. And they're now talking to each other much more, but it's relatively new. My own sense is that we've now got to bring the private sector into the discussion on development. You know, there are people like Paul Pullman at Unilever who have been extremely dedicated to getting into the development conversation from the beginning. For the millennium development goals, you know, the private sector was never part of the conversation. And we basically asked them to make donations after everything was decided. This time in Addis, for the first time, the private sector will be at the table talking to us about how we can reach these goals. I was a government guy for 25 years and I must say I had a bias about it, but it's not a bad thing for the private sector to make profits, especially if we can channel them in a way where they can help do good in the world. And I appreciate you're doing this. But we really believe that there are many, many win-win-win situations out there. So the bottom line is that unless we create bankable projects, you know, projects in which there will be a return, we're not going to get the infrastructure built. So that's, you know, we've focused so much on doing this. We've created something called the Global Infrastructure Facility. And specifically, it's focused on using all of our literally 50 years of experience in doing this kind of thing. And bringing it to the table so that we can prepare the projects. Now, you know, a sovereign wealth fund doesn't have a whole staff of people who are used to putting together projects for bridges in Africa. But we do. And so what we're hoping is that we'll put those projects together. We'll bring our safeguards and our procurement standards and everything to the table. We'll prepare those projects and then the decision will be on whether to invest because we feel that we'll be able to create a very clear picture of risk and reward. And a lot of these people, especially in the pension funds and the sovereign wealth funds have all these ideas about these projects being too risky. We think that by bringing our experience to the table, they'll understand that actually the risk-reward ratio is very favorable and that they'll begin to invest. It's exciting. We're going to open up and I'd ask you to sir, you write that in the back. Your hand is up. The microphone should come right to you. Hustle over. We don't have time. Thank you. John, thank you. John Zan with CTI TV of Taiwan. Sir, the question is about the China's initiative to establish the AIIB. What do you think of this event? And are there, what are the ways that the World Bank can cooperate with AIIB? Thank you. Thank you. You know, we've been speaking, we've been, the World Bank Group has a very close relationship with China. You know, it's really a remarkable relationship and it goes back a long way. But you know, the recent relationship was really shaped in many ways by my predecessor Bob Zellick. Bob initiated a really brilliant process where he worked very closely with the Chinese government to put together a report called China 2030. And in that is really the blueprint for the reforms that are taking place today. You know, changing the Chinese growth model from one focused on investments and exports to one focused on consumption and services. All these things that, despite the lower, still very high but lower growth rate of 7%, they are continuing. So this is part of a long conversation that we've been having with China. We then did a report on urbanization. We're now doing one on health. So our communication with them is very close. And so we've been talking about this Asian infrastructure investment back from the very beginning. And my position on it has been the same from the very beginning. My goodness, we have so much need for infrastructure that we welcome any new players. And the Chinese government has been very clear to us that this is not competition for us but that they have been very, very clear that they want to cooperate. And we've already been cooperating. You know, it's still early days. They've not, they don't have articles of agreement yet. They've not, you know, decided what kind of instruments are going to put together. But I can think of many potential joint projects. We have this global infrastructure facility. They could invest there. And the conversations are just beginning. But, you know, the fundamental issue for us is your enemy cannot be other institutions. Your enemy has to be poverty. And if your enemy is poverty, the natural thing to do is welcome any new players that are interested in developing the kind of infrastructure that will end poverty. Alex, in the second row here in the blue jacket, please. Good morning, Dr. Kim. My name is Simon. You'll have to talk louder. Yeah. My name is Simon Adegi. My question is pretty much from the African point of view. Most of the things you raise was pretty much about how developed countries use their tax to aid most of their developing countries. What is the World Bank doing in a situation regarding having to build in the developing countries social safety or social security or situation of tax system? Because if you as a World Bank group actually involve and engage these developing countries in these aspects, then they will learn as a policy of the World Bank to engage its citizens to come into that line even if there is no money in terms of poverty for the low income or the poor people, but the system and the infrastructure is already in place. That's one aspect. I'm going to limit one question because I have too many other people. So answer this question. So let me just take what I think I understand your question to be. So on the one hand, if there's one thing that I think has changed most dramatically about the World Bank group, it's the extent to which we engage our clients in discussions about what the right thing to do is. In the early 1990s, I was part of a group called 50 Years is Enough. We were on the streets trying to argue for the closing of the World Bank group. We lost that argument very good because I have this job now. And I have to tell you, I've not seen any institution that is as open as the World Bank in taking criticism and also changing its practice over time. So now the World Bank group works very closely with countries to try to figure out what is it that they want in terms of their own development path. And secondly, we are now aggressively moving forward so that every single project will have beneficiary feedback. In other words, the people who are actually benefiting the program, we're going to get feedback directly from them. Now we've also worked on programs that increase the accountability by just, for instance, very simple things like putting posters on the outside of school saying to the community the hours that the teacher is supposed to be there and then giving them a number to call if they don't show up. So working with countries, accountability, working with the citizens themselves is extremely important. And a critical part of it, and one of the things I mentioned, is building institutions is extremely important. And so we're working very hard to build institutions. Now some of the problems of inability to collect taxes, you know, there are countries, extremely poor countries where the top 1500 wage earners are exempted from paying taxes. We've got to call that what it is. This is not acceptable. And so we want to bring about fair tax systems. And we think that what we'll find is that often the collecting of higher taxes or doing other things like removing fuel subsidies, which are basically the most aggressive tax system you can imagine, that those kinds of things bringing more money into the public budget will allow countries to be able to provide the kind of social support mechanisms like cash transfers that we know to be effective. The strategy that I laid out, Grow, Invest, Ensure, was not always the strategy of the World Bank Group. For a long time we focused a lot on growth of GDP. But this particular formulation is new. That putting growth investment in people and ensuring the poor against plunging into poverty, this is something new for us. And we want to help every country, especially in Africa, get there. A huge part of focus is going to be on Africa. That's where I think some of the most difficult challenges exist. But it's also the place where we have the highest ambition. Alex in the fourth row, the lady with the green lime gleam blouse. Thank you. I'm Julie Howard, formerly with U.S. AIDS Bureau for Food Security. Thank you very much for your focus on agricultural productivity. I wonder if you would comment then on the World Bank's decision to withdraw core funding from the CGIR centers of international agricultural research and seeming withdrawal of World Bank leadership from those very important institutions. So we haven't withdrawn funding from CGIR. We recognize the importance of agricultural research and we're simply in a process of finding how we can support it over time. Our focus on agriculture research, getting better seeds, the expansion of extension services, this is all very real. And it's just simply what we did was there was a part of a budget that had been without review simply renewing different grants to different groups over a very long period of time. We're simply moving that up into the light of day and finding the right way to support through other parts of the budget these particular efforts. Right here in the third row. I'm John Harbison, adjunct at SICE and George Washington University. You've said almost nothing about the institutional foundations and requirements of the strategy you articulate. I'm thinking particularly about land tenure, civil society and democracy. Yeah, you know, it's a 20 minute speech. So but those issues are critical. Right. So the involvement of civil society, you know, the reference to it was on accountability. And we've been working very closely with civil society organizations to increase accountability. You know, there are many ways that we've been doing it. You know, for example, in Afghanistan, where travel is so difficult, we actually have have brought villagers and and members of civil society into the project itself by giving them cell phone cameras. So they have cell phones and cameras and they actually take pictures of the project. They also have a function where they can get rid of all the pictures if they're ever questioned so that they don't get in trouble. But you know, that level of involvement with civil society just wasn't happening 20 years ago. And it's it's part of the of the tremendous change in in the World Bank Group. Also, land tenure is a critical issue. Land tenure is one that that sorting out land tenure issues is often the most one of the most difficult things to do. I mean, country I know well, Haiti, this has just been a constant problem. But we we work on it and you're right. It's extremely important, especially in agriculture. First row right here, Alex, Alex right, yeah, right pressure that Ahmed from Al Jazeera. You talked about violence and how it increases chances for poverty and could you elaborate on any World Bank initiatives or plans on the to encounter the poverty emanating from the hot spots in the Middle East like Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and so on. So, you know, when I when I meet with with leaders of governments in the area, right, especially the new leaders, sometimes they ask us for support for arms. And we can't do that. We can't get it. We don't we don't supply funding for arms. But it's a it's a it's a constant conversation that I've been having with with the great thinkers and leaders in in that particular region. To what extent is the problem ideological and to what extent is the problem economic. And so I get a surprising variety of answers and they span the entire range from people who say you cannot approach this from an economic development perspective. It's an ideological problem to those who say it's a it's very much an economic problem. So my guess is it's somewhere somewhere in the middle and right now what we're really, really focusing on is to try to do everything we can to at least eliminate the potential recruits that are there because they can't get a job and they don't have an education. So what are the major things that we're trying to do? One of the things that that I've agreed with Dr. Ali, the the the revered president of the Islamic Development Bank, the thing that we've agreed on is that we're going to work together on a major education initiative. So you know what we know is that even though the the GDP per capita of some of the countries in that region have gone sky high, educational outcomes are still very low. And so I think that something fundamentally different has happened in the prospects for quickly improving educational outcomes. So the bridge international academies what I've told you about is they essentially take learning modules from the Khan Academy and any of you who have children who've done the Khan Academy, I've done the Khan Academy myself, right? Sal Khan is an amazing teacher and there are fantastic teachers out there in every language. And what they do is essentially put very simple but effective lessons into a very simple format on on software. So what Bridge Academy does is essentially puts very low cost tablets and tablets are as inexpensive as $25 for to make. And they put them into classrooms. And as the students learn the great secret is the teachers are learning too. And that that rather than waiting 25 or 30 years to improve the quality of teachers, you bring great teachers into the classroom right away. And for $6 per student per month, they're able to do that. And then what the teachers do is walk around and help the students who need the most help. And the great news about the Middle East is that there's a shared language, there's a shared literature, there's that there's a way that we think we could take to scale a new kind of educational program. We would focus on on the areas that are weakest, math, the STEM discipline, science, technology, engineering and math. And will that make a huge difference? I'm not sure. But we know this is a huge issue. And we know that if we can have a region wide discussion on education and then take on other issues, another huge issue of course is water, right. We're not we're not naive into thinking that that measures that are focused on economic development will stop all conflict. But we now are convinced that we've got to try and we've got to be aggressive about it. We've got to think anew about the kinds of interventions that we may be able to take to scale that might have an effect on the conversation. Colleagues, the press of time will allow us only one last question and the gentleman in the third row. Yeah, we'll get a microphone over real quick. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Charles Newstead from the State Department. Given the fact that the Soviet and the Chinese systems are so different, both economically, politically and ideologically, from those in the West, is it really possible to work with them to help end extreme poverty? Or in particular, are they seriously interested in doing that? And what would the strategies be that the West and the World Bank in particular would have to use to work with them on this problem? Did you say you're from the State Department? State Department. State Department. I'm kidding. Myself, not through it. OK, all right. Because you used it. You used the term Soviet. I was wondering if that's still. Oh, sorry. It looks like I knew what he meant. I'm just saying that habit. I'm too old to change. You know, one of the lessons that I know that the leaders of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank are going to learn is that multilateralism is really hard. It's always been really hard. It continues to be really hard. And the reason it's really hard is that for us, anyway, at the World Bank Group, the reason I have to run back is that our board lives with us. Our board is right in the building. And all of the conflicts that exist in the world are present on that board. But one of the great things about having a board that lives with us is that the people who are on the board get to know each other. And what happens is that they find ways of getting past difficulties that they wouldn't, I don't think, if they only came a few times a year. So is China serious about reducing poverty? Oh, my God. I mean, the Chinese have lifted more people out of extreme poverty than any country in the world, by far. Probably 600 million people. And they did it through a very aggressive strategy focused on growth. And it was growth that happened to a great extent in the manufacturing sector, but also in agriculture. So are they serious about it? Absolutely. Are the Russians serious about us? Well, you know, they're also a member in very good standing, of course, of the World Bank Group and endorsed fully our goal of ending extreme poverty. So I would say that the end of extreme poverty is one of those things that the entire world has been able to agree on. It's probably the one sustainable development goal going forward in September that, again, everyone seems to agree on. And so for us, it's not a question of ideologically whether we agree on it or not. For us, it's really a question of just ensuring that we get every single bit of experience, advice, solutions that have worked in other areas, and then provide them to everyone who has embraced this target. And for the first time in history, my understanding, and I may be wrong, but my understanding is that in April of 2013, when the 188th member of government, so the World Bank Group, endorsed the goal to end extreme poverty, it was the first time that the World Bank Group, as a whole, had ever had clear goals. You know, one of the sort of fundamental lessons in management is if you're going to try to accomplish something, you've got to set a clear target with a clear end date. So we have it now, end of extreme poverty by 2030. And then if you go backwards, you have to rethink fundamentally if your organization is structured in the right way to get to the end of poverty. We restructured the organization because we knew that global knowledge was not flowing as well as it could throughout the organization. And I think we're all very happy we did that because with the emergence of these new banks, the one thing that they're not gonna be able to do quickly is to have 50 years of global knowledge inside their institution. We wanna be the group that provides that to them and to everyone else. Colleagues, I know that there are at least 50 other people here who would like to ask questions. We don't have time because President Kim has to get back to the bank. Let me just say, this is an agenda that he's outlined not just for the World Bank, but for all of us. And this is a goal everyone in this room and everybody in the country should embrace. And we should all say thank you to you, Dr. Kim, for your vision, for your leadership. And would you please thank him with your applause. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. John, thanks so much. Thank you.