Outgoing World Bank chief makes poverty statement

Private ownership around the world is key to easing poverty, outgoing World Bank President James Wolfensohn said as he toured the Pine Ridge Reservation, one of the poorest areas in the US.

His visit coincides with the creation of the Global Facilities Fund for Indigenous Peoples, an international loan program.

The goal of the fund is to help native people around the world financially benefit from their land, intellectual property and other assets, she said.

The industrialised world could learn much from native people, Wolfensohn said.

“I think many of us who’ve grown up in more of a Western tradition need to stand back in a world in which we’re really screwing up and see what the older nations, the indigenous nations, could contribute,” he said.

Wolfensohn, aged 71, is being succeeded by Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary who helped plan the Iraq war.