New York City, March 16, 2005

The UN was lately abuzz with the words PRO BONO: first there was talk
of
the U2 rock star Bono being mentioned as a candidate for next President
of
the World Bank, then it became known that an otherwise reputable
gentleman,
after befriending the UN Secretary-General, and offering his advise
PRO-BONO, he managed anyway to further the interests of friends and
clients
who did make a bundle and were not PRO-BONO. The first topic - the
pro-U2Bono - is indeed something very unusual and commendable for a UN
affiliated body, the second PRO-BONO activity may be more common then
described and not acceptable. We wish the situation were always
positive.

Now let me say that I am also pro-Bono, that is I am pro-U2Bono.
Bono’s
supporters, seemingly, are also backed by no less then the US Secretary
of
the Treasury, Mr. Snow, who was quoted as saying that he agrees to have
Irish Bono on his short list of candidates. All this because Bono has
shown
for years a deep understanding of the possible achievements that the
World
Bank could attain under the right leadership.

Bono is deeply involved with humanitarian issues - Africa, poverty in
the
third world, the AIDS epidemic in the third world, the impossible debt
of
the developing countries, just to name a few issues where he is a
leader.
Bono has been proposed for the Nobel Peace prize. But Bono is also
recognized in business circles and he is welcome to the Davos meetings
of
the World Economic Forum, along with world’s leaders and thinkers. At
this
year’s Davos meeting, according to the portuguese February edition of
the
New York paper “The Brazilians”, Bono was advocating help to the
African
poor and appropriately knew to point out that 40% of Africa’s
population is
Muslim, and like in the case of Afghanistan, extremism could result
from a
collapsed state. Bono seems to have the imagination of a musician, the
mind
of a businessman and the heart needed by an intellectual political
scientist. Bono seems to do the right thing, and also important, seems
not
to have known enemies.

Yesterday morning, March 15, 2005, I watched on the TV morning program
Bono’s newest project. He was introducing a new clothing company. He
has
figured out that people in the west would be ready to spend a little
more
for their clothe if they knew that they were certain these clothe were
not
made by underage children - working rather then going to school. His
company starts out with two factories - one in Peru and the other in
Tunisia. He stresses that this is not a charity but a business. He
wants
to provide work to the poor in developing countries and peace of mind
to
thinking buyers in rich countries. He wants to teach us that to go to
a
shop and look at labels, and then decide in his words: “I will buy
this one
because I know who has made it”. The new line of close will have this
certification. Other organizations have done similar things vis-a-vis
agricultural products. One successful example is coffee grown in
environmentally and socially benign conditions and these are the kind
of
ideas that should have been a given base for the activities of the
World
Bank. Also, some of the most successful examples of development for
the
poor come from the Grameen banks in Bangladesh where small loans and
the
empowerment of women have resulted in economically successful
households and
education of their children.

With above in mind, and thinking about writing a pro-U2Bono article, I
was
sitting the following day at the UN, at the Preparatory Meeting for
the
ECOSOC 2005 High-Level Segment - “Achieving the internationally agreed
development goals, including those contained in the Millennium
Declaration,
as well as implementing the outcomes of the major United Nations
conferences
and summits: progress made, challenges and opportunities”. This is a
mouthful and thus clearly points out that there was a lot of talk at
the UN
on these subjects, but little results.

Profesor Jeffrey Sachs from the Columbia University Earth Center, and a
Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General on the Millennium
Development
Goals, was lecturing: “People that have no money will have no Swiss
bank
accounts - they try to stay alive, they need help, yet we come to tell
them
things like Good Governance and MDGs.” Prof. Sachs, giving out exact
examples, mentioned the fact that in these communities they can not
afford
the $6 per capita/per year needed for the minimum health services,
while we
average $6,000. Regarding funding Prof. Sachs made it clear that
nothing
new is needed - no new commitments at all - only the fulfilling of
existing
long-standing commitments. When he approached the WB, Prof. Sachs was
told
that “we studied the situation in Africa for years and found that
there
were no human resources for action”. Then I heard him say “For WB
President
one candidate was nominated today - more candidates were needed”.
I understood he did not like the nominee.

When I found out that the United States had put forward the name of
Paul
Wolfowitz (nicknamed by President Bush “Wolfie”) I was at first as
devastated as Professor Sachs seemed to have been. I am still
pro-U2-Bono
but at second thought I feel now that there is really no intrinsic
difference between the two. Nevertheless, I am still for Bono and this
because I think that there would have been much less pressure on him to
allow the other PRO-BONO types, and the outright pro-business types,
that
see in Wolfie the potential to continue using the work of the bank for
their personal or organizational benefit.

The 2000 Meltzer report, prepared for the sake of US Congress, found
that
70% of the WB “non-aid” funds went to 11 countries that already have
easy
access to capital markets, such as China, Mexico, Brazil , Thailand,
nevertheless, the bank’s own evaluation said that 59% of its investment
portfolio in the 1990’s failed. This led the present WB President, Mr.
Wolfensohn, to start switching loans to grants and tie grants to well
defined performance such as miles of road built, numbers of students
graduated etc. The report found that countries that did not have access
to
capital markets also were of higher risk to the bank. These countries
remain poor because their political system is unstable, had limited
private
property rights, weak judicial systems or subservient, and corrupt
governments.

Let me be more specific. The World Bank (WB) and the International
Monetary
Fund (IMF) are the financial institutions that work with the UN, they
are
the Bretton Woods Institutions. It is these institutions, the regional
international banks, and the later created World Trade Organization
(WTO)
and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
that have the means to implement economic development policy.
The UN itself is an organization that believes it still has the image
of one
nation one vote. So, with 191 members, the UN General Assembly is
nothing
more then a deliberative body that has long lost even its originally
intended moral status. The 15 member UN Security Council also has the
notion of one country one vote, but then, the off-springs of the
original
five super-powers are “more equal” then the other ten “non-permanent”
members. The five can wield the veto power and thus bring operative
decisions of the UN to a stand still. Not so the Bretton Woods
Institutions. There the voting is per size of the funds contributed
to the
bank; these are according to the size of the economy - the real power
coming
from formulas that distinguish between the “haves” and the “have-nots”
- the
latter being at the receiving end. Under an historic arrangement the
IMF is
run by an European and the WB is run by an American. The US has 16% of
the
votes at the WB and is the largest member. The Europeans, in the
aggregate
have 30%, and they also provide more funds for foreign aid, but above
arrangements preclude them from appointing the bank President.

The post 9/11 world knows now that giving more self interest to the
people
rather then feeding funds to governments, is the long range strategy to
decrease the dangers of terrorism. The WB was intended to help poor
countries industrialize and decrease poverty, but it became a conduit
of
funds to all sorts of dictators and just a resting stations on for the
funds, in part ending up back at the corporations in the industrialized
countries, and in part in Swiss numbered bank accounts. Both, Bono and
Wolfie can be counted upon as wielding a war on poverty and ready to
support
healthcare, education of women - provide vaccines and mosquito nets -
and
compete with the likes of Hamas in social care. As President Carter
once
said: “the great democracies of the world are not free because they are
rich, but are rich because they are free”. The WB under Bono or Wolfie
would become both - a poverty-fighting institution and a democracy
spreading
institution. Democracy, a free press, the rule of law, will also help
fight
bribery and corruption. The world will become safer and thus serve
present
US policy goals. Bono would see in this a humanitarian goal, Wolfie
perhaps
more a US interest - but both will be activists and fight dealing with
autocratic self serving regimes and monitor results on the ground,
narrowing
convergence between US geopolitical interests and the operations of the
international development and financial institutions.

Considering that much of the misery of the poor comes from health
conditions
resulting from the disregard of the environment, also, problems created
by
climate change resulting from CO2 emissions hurt disproportionately
more the
poor, here Bono has the advantage, as he will not be beholden to the
large
industrial interests that see in their telescopes the potential of
extracting resources from the lands of the poor in order to enrich
themselves. So here I have thus to return to a clear pro-U2-Bono
position.