The only way really to influence countries, in terms of poverty, is to get them to change their policies and get them to understand what the issues are.
Interpretation
Influencing countries to alleviate poverty requires policy change and understanding of the issues at hand.
James Wolfensohn emphasizes that true influence over countries, especially regarding poverty alleviation, is achieved by advocating for policy changes and fostering a deeper understanding of the underlying issues. This highlights the importance of both awareness and action in creating effective solutions to poverty.
In practice
At a conference on global development, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for informed policymaking.
In this time of globalization, with all its advantages, the poor are the most vulnerable to having their traditions, relationships and knowledge and skills ignored and denigrated, and experiencing development with a great sense of trauma, loss and social disconnectedness.
Too many of the conflicts which are caused today are caused by the problems that emerge from people who are in poverty.
So the first thing you need to do about conflict is to prevent it, and the best way of preventing it is by dealing with the question of poverty.
When I travel, I make certain that I spend at least half of my time in the field. You have to get out to meet people that are in poverty, that are looking to improve their lives. That's something that you can't read in books.
The Bank had never used the word 'corruption' at all until I got there, and the reason for that was, as the general counsel pointed out to me, that quite a number of our shareholders represented were not immune from corruption in their governments.
If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.
The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.
The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning.
I don't think children themselves have changed that much. It's the world that has changed.
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