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programs on our websites. and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. well in an unconventional way last night, rick santorum e-mailed supporters to endorse mitt romney for president. the former pennsylvania senator wrote, the primary campaign certainly made it clear that governor romney and i have some differences, but there are many significant areas in which we agree. the need for lower taxes, smaller government and a reduction in out of control spending. we both agree that president obama must be defeated. it will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious. governor romney will be that nominee and has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime. mr. santorum sent that email to supporters a little after 11:00 eastern last night. well, outgoing world bank president robert zoellick spoke to international relief and development organizations and cautioned against a top-down approach when it comes to

international development and called on the u.s. to rein in its budget deficit subpoena this . this is about an hour. >> is this loud enough? if you can turn it up a little bit in the back. thank you. is -- it is a great pleasure to welcome to the interaction forum mr. bob zoellick, who is the president of the world bank group. i think it is telling that during his tenure, and i think i'll -- we've known each other a long while that bob has not only led a led one of the major institutions, but has done so in

a manner that has been based on a significant recognition not only of the role of civil society but civil society as a fundamental partner and critical player in the development space. as you all know, bob zoellick came from the private sector as the vice chairman international of of the goldman sachs group but also someone who has devoted years of public service, whether it's been as the deputy secretary of state or a career in terms of time as the 13th u.s. trade representative. an individual who is perhaps the best of what a public servant is, someone with both dedication, knowledge and a vision for change. we're going to have a brief conversation and thought that we could explore a number of topics before we turn it out to you, our audience, and there will be some mics for that.

perhaps the place to start is as you end a term, a very successful tenure at world bank, what do you have perhaps a sense of leg seas, greatest accomplishments, accountability, transparency, a more sort of client approach. if you had to sort of reflect back and look at where do you think you have left the mark and then we'll turn a little bit to the future after that. >> okay. well, first, sam, let me thank you. you in particular and interaction have been a great partner for the bank. and for all the people in the audience, i was reminded that i think i participated in this forum from londen in a videoconference a couple of years ago. it's a great forum. and you've had as i understand it a very successful three days

in terms of covering a wide variety of topics and from a brief exchange with sam, i had a sense in some ways what you've been discussing is a similar aspect what i would have been trying to do at the bank over the past five years, which is to see how the bank fits into a larger network or ecosystem of partners and how to leverage and draw from one another and sam has been extremely helpful in many different aspects. so thanks to you. >> i guess when i reflect on my tenure at the bank, i tend to think of three phases. it's been a busy five years, that's for sure. the world economy has been a little bit in turmoil. but the first part was the institution faced its own time of troubles and so there was an internal turnaround that one had to focus on,

and as a complement to the bank staff, my judgment was that the sooner we got people focused on the mission of the bank that the sooner they would move away from the gossip that occurs in every institution. and so i tried to focus people on some core strategic themes and that judgment turned out to be right, which is the reason people come to the bank because they're deeply committed, want to accomplish important things. those are challenging issues but getting people refocused is an important part. second, as you know, because we worked closely on interaction with this. i came to the bank in july of 2007. by later that year we were starting to get some worrisome signs in terms of food prices, and i think we also talked at a time. there was an article that had come out in "lancet."

so we quickly hit a sequence of food, fuel and financial crisis, and it was very important for the bank not only to respond's in a big way, but more flexibly, more quickly, we had about a quarter trillion dollars of financial support across all aspects of the bank throughout that period, but as important as the money was the type of things we did with interaction and many others and u.n. agencies in the foods and seeds area and the flexible type of supports for countries that are frankly, treading virgin ground in terms of the challenges they face. the third phase, we're able to focus more on it, which is to try to modernize the institution. one of the themes that i've stressed is the need to modernize multi-lateralism. i often view things from a historical perspective because i have a great love of history and

so i look at the world bank as one of the bretton wood institutions created in world war ii for one set of functions. if you think about the issues that people were trying to deal with in that era, which is currencies and exchange rates, deconstruction, trade, those issues haven't gone away, they've been transformed. so the institutions -- some people believe you should do away with institutions. i tend to believe more of an institutionalist. i think that they play a critical role as a thin interconnecting tissue among sovereign states and you have to make them better. there's a lot of modernization of the financial agenda. one is financial. we got the first capital increase of the bank in 22 years in the area for of 79 poorest states, something called ida, raising $90 billion including

for reflows in those countries over the past five years and then a second area is something that i know you feel very strongly about, which is to try to open up the institution. and this we created the first freedom of information act for a multilateral institution, but equally or if not more important we've opened up all our data sources, so 7,000 data sets going back to the late '40s, and we continue to expand that. so the idea is not only to make it available but to help develop applications so people may tap into our household survey data, that going back and maybe add to it in different aspects. and this is important, because not only does it sort of force the institution to be open to a variety of voices, but it's part of a larger idea that i've been

suggesting about the need to democratize development. move it away from sort of elite economists and universities that say thou shalt do this and that and instead work with people everything from the communities to their capitals to try to figure out how they perceive problems and how we can have an interactive process. this has huge potential. if you think about it, you can go to our website, call up all the projects in all the countries and find out where all the projects are. if you want to get interactive, you can go to a village and say this is how you see what's going on and this is how we see what's going on. this is transformative in the way this things works, and as you think about civil society, these are groups that can help you catch corruption. help you assess the performance of social services. these are groups that can help you determine, you know, what are the priorities of the community?

so it's a huge shift from the notion of kind of a big, bureaucratic, elite institution in washington to a much more networked system. and there are also aspects of modernization. we're trying to figure out, as you are, how to interact with more assets of the private sector, how to connect us with trade agendas, how to integrate the public goods agenda with an agenda that's normally focused on countries, whether it's oceans or climate change or some of the other broader issues. how to interconnect those. and i guess how i would summarize it is to say what i tried to do at the bank is to focus on developing things as developing countries as clients as opposed to obligates.

here's the idea we're going to show you. the idea is to go to clients and say let's understand your problems and let's try to figure out what we can bring to bear on those problems, either from our knowledge or increasingly from the experience of other developing countries. so the other change sam mentioned i was the trade representative in 2001 so over 11 years i've sort of seen this in trade and in finance and in development. the extraordinary changes of developing countries on the world economy but on other developing countries is just something that is moved with extreme rapidity and the system is still adapting to it. and we're still adapted to it. >> a rather impressive five years during a very difficult, challenging time. i think that was interesting is you gave a speech on an understanding of the roles that societies play in development. and both the democratization. and so forth. how did you come to the

conclusions of working both beyond the nation's state and what would be the change to play the most development role in this broader development effort? >> well, my background is more sort of multi-disciplinary. so whether it's history or government or economics or finance or diplomacy or other aspects, you know, i sometimes joke that political scientists tend to like to come up with structures that will sort of simplify and portray societies. if you approach life through the perspective of a historian, you tend to see the complexities and the gray. and so, you know, frankly whatever the problem you're dealing with now, whether it's a business or as a diplomat or others, we're so far beyond the

idea of sort of nation states as billiard balls and black boxes that you have to understand the society. so to apply this in the context of development, one of the things i tried to view is to is say these are very difficult political economy issues. so if there's a problem and we come up with the best textbook solution that doesn't work in the political economy then it doesn't work and we haven't served the client. so how can we try to understand their institutions, the limitations, the strength, the weaknesses and bring things to bear? well, so this immediately opens the door to not only the governments that you deal with from the executive branch but the parliaments, certainly the broader definition of civil society. so, you know, witness what's happened in the arab world. i mean, you know, so this is a very sharp example of you can have certain growth numbers.

you can having certain types of performance, but if you don't have inclusive growth, if you don't bring people into societies, so it really runs through everything. you know, if you think about most any problem that i've dealt with in any capacity, it's that if you're trying to get something done or to improve it, you have to have your partner own it. and so in development, if you can bring money, you can bring expertise, you can bring all sorts of things, but if the local people don't own it, it won't work. and so, you know, civil society is simply a very broad umbrella phrase to me for different ways in which people participate in their own future. >> now, thank you for that. one of the things that has been interesting to see is the role that the bank has played, you personally have played as an advocate to focus on the world's poor, to focus on change that impacts the broadest possible number of people. you know, since your tenure, to what extent have we as a global

society been successful in dealing with global poverty issue, and, you know, as you get a sense of the bank playing a catalyst role within that, to what extent have we made strides forward and where do you think we need to really push our efforts? >> let me come back to that. i was just reflecting on the question you asked before because it might be interesting to the audience, at least this perspective. remember, i was trade representative in 2001. okay? and so trade is to me a very fascinating topic because it's both international but it's domestic. and, you know when i came into the trade representative's office in 2001, there was literally blood on the walls because people were upset about various issues, whether it's anti-globalization or it was issues of intellectual property rights and pharmaceuticals and others. and, you know, maybe it's both because my experience in a democratic society in governance, but my view has always been, it's better to open

up and have the dialogue and discourse. so, my own, you know, i have a preference for it being one where people aren't yelling at at each other. so in that sense, i'm sort of 18th century enlightenment. but that's the way i prefer to do it, but you take life as it is, but you have to -- and so the more that you show you're willing to discuss and debate, but the other side of it, and i do this all around the world, you also have to say look, if i disagree with you, i get the right to say it. i don't just fold. if i have a different view on the role of energy development or electricity in africa or people who don't want dams under what conditions, okay, but what about the 30% of people, only 30% of people in sub-saharan africa have electricity, how are we going to get them electricity, to have and lit cal discourse about this. it's true in diplomacy, as well.

i was the lead negotiator for the united states at the time of german unification in 1989. and in some ways, it was an interesting example of both state craft but kind of the public understanding because what our initial read of the situation in late '89 after the berlin wall opened was that the people of east germany wanted what the west germans had. there was a school of thought at that time called the third way that said no, no, we're going to create our own separate state. well, i was in east germany shortly after the wall opened. and i was visiting lutheran churches which played a very important role in terms of the civil society that such as it could exist in the former german democratic public but what i could seep is that this was not going to be a merger. it was going to be a takeover because people wanted what west

germany had, okay? so it was an understanding then the whole momentum of the next 11 months was driven by the fact that east germans were going to come one way or the other. so understanding societies can, understanding the messaging, you know, so even if you're a diplomat in the state department, it's critically important and certainly if in the world of trade or others. so i underscore this because to me, you know, now this is -- it's like so normal it's obvious, okay? how people engage. and then of course, and you've all been part of this, how civil societies engage and one has to recognize, you know, some of them will be advocates. some of them will be participants. some of them, you know, will be you know, opponents and different things. but so the world needs room for all of that. and so you have to decide how

you will engage with partners in different ways and to come back to this for the bank, you see, this is interesting because the other lesson for development is, governance is really important. it's not just a question of sort of the formal economics. well, we now have 188 countries because south sudan just joined and you got very different governances. they're not all democracies, obviously. what you can find part of my life is finding common ground to make a better good out of it, and what you can find is a lot of countries even within authoritarian systems understand the importance of reaching out to their publics and go thing the public opinion and having a better sense of performance for their schools or their health care systems or whatever. so there's a way that you can make better societies as part of this and you know, better performance along the way. so all of this fits within sort of the concept to me of kind of the engagement of civil society and its richness. to say nothing of the fact that that makes for richer societies. reckon i come from this from the point of view, again, in sort of

a enlightenment notion is that the state has the role, but in my perfect society, the state's not the all dominant role. it's there to be a servant of the public. so the public is groups that organize so then you asked about the poverty issue. well, you know in, macro numbers, you know, the first millennium development goal of cutting poverty in half is one that will be reached and it's already been reached before 2015. and you know, but it's been largely the big aspect is the performance in china. but also to a degree india and some of the others but we've now seen progress across sub-saharan africa. so in macro numbers you know, there have been some significant achievements. on the other hand, you know, if you look at the number of people living under $2 a day supposed to $1.25 a day, there's still billions and billions of people.

now, they're starting to get a chance to have some -- at those levels, the difference is whether it's almost just subsistence or whether you can start to see a better future. so when we start to get in societies where you start to see that, you know, mothers and fathers can create a better chance for their children to have a better life, you know, then you start to get into all sorts of takeoff possibilities. now, having said this, of course, you have to disaggregate in the world. so one of the other areas i've tried to put focus on the bank and i know many of the people in this room work with is what paul collier popularized as the bottom billion, about a billion and a half people living in societies where you either have got conflict or post conflict and none of it works. you got, you know, a downward spiral of governance failures and poverty failures and leading to more violence. that's an area where i've tried to highlight at the bank, but we're still just beginning i

think in the starting points of the work there and there's lots of things the bank and others can improve to do as partners. i think as you think about you know poverty, one of the challenges for the world is to recognize that poverty is not only an issue of what they associate as say the poorest countries or what we have as the 79 i.d.a. countries. that's a form of financial support people get, grants or long-term loans without interest. 70% of the people living under $2 a day are in so-called middle income countries so part of the challenge at the bank is how do we work with the so-called middle income countries that many people in developed countries think are doing pretty well because they read the story about indian or chinese growth but don't recognize there's still a lot of poor people. how do we try to address that. so i think to sect the civil society with this, you know, what the good news is that i

think countries throughout with recognizing they don't have money to waste and so when you are trying to learn more about how to have effective service delivery, you know, people have looked at conditional cash transfer models and different safety nets but obviously, the feedback that you get in communities and from civil society is an important dimension of that. so we're a long way from overcoming the poverty issue but on the other hand, what i try to emphasize to people at the bank is that if overcoming poverty were such an easy thing to do, somebody would have done it a long time ago. this has been with us for a while. but when you look at the strides that have been taken, it's impressive but should motivate us to keep going. >> i think that's a very interesting frame both in terms of progress and so forth but you know, this broader issue of inclusive growth of states that are responsive to the citizenry. you've will an interesting innovation, this social accountability fund. this concept that you know,

both -- is the world ready for this concept, and to what extent does you know, civil society itself need to mature as an actor helping if states ultimately because it is a country ownership frame. meet their poor citizens and also effectively manage their budgets in such a way that we aren't seeing corruption. >> yeah. well, at one level, just to give you a sense, i think i'm trying to remember exact but this is a rough number. the world bank probably provides about $600 million a year to civil society groups as part of development. so -- let me give you a practical example. when we work with the government of afghanistan on a development of basic preventive health care, our idea is again the government has to own it. so one of the dangers is people of good will go in, they try to

develop it, but it's not no connection with the government and society and when they leave it, dies. so our idea going back a number of years ago was to recognize that the health ministry could design something but it didn't have the capacity so this basic preventive health services is operated through civil society groups. it's outsourced so whether they are international or whether they're domestic or some combination and it's had a huge effect on infant mortality and maternal health. so basic medical services. so you know, effective societies realize you can in some of the role of civil society groups as is on the service delivery. but what led to the creation of this fund was the idea that i thought that what i'd even is a number of civil society groups played a particularly important role on the social accountability side trying to understand the performance, help us with anti-corruption.