World Bank president Robert Zoellick said Arab countries have been "underserved" by the development lender and that he wants to develop an initiative to get more involved in the Arab world, according to an interview published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
Zoellick also said that the bank will continue to lend to middle-income countries like China, Brazil and India despite criticism of the practice because a large majority of the world's poor live in those countries.
"There are some 70 percent of the poor in middle-income countries. If we are going to deal with the poverty agenda, we need to be engaged with these countries," he told the Journal, ahead of a major policy address planned for tomorrow.
"[Also] if you look at what's happening in the fields of diplomacy and political and security affairs, one of the big challenges is how we integrate the Indias, the Chinas and the Brazils in the multilateral system," Zoellick said.
"It strikes me as illogical that you would be trying to engage them in creating a new multilateral order, and not do it in the multilateral economic system," he said.
"This is a set of countries [that have] probably been underserved by the bank, and so what I'm trying to identify is how can we work with some of these governments and the private sector to create additional opportunity and development," he said.
The latest batch from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s e-mails illustrates the extraordinary scope of his contacts with powerful people, ranging from a top Trump adviser to Britain’s ex-prince Andrew. The US House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on trying to force release of evidence gathered on Epstein by law enforcement over the years — including the identities of the men suspected of participating in his alleged sex trafficking ring. However, a slew of e-mails released this week have already opened new windows to the extent of Epstein’s network. These include multiple references to US President Donald
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