Currently Washington Bureau chief with bank rate. Com. The National Press club is the leading organization for aurnalists is committed to free press around the world. For more information, please visit the website at press. Org. On behalf of our members worldwide, i would like to welcome our speaker and those of you in the audience today. Our head table includes guests of our speaker. Constantly, we remind people that members of the general public attend. Welcome cspan and other audiences here today. You can also follow us on twitter. After the speech concludes, we. Ill have questions and answers introduce our to table. We will begin on this and, welcoming paula, and in turn at public news and a student at georgetown university, bravely studying journalism and government. We want to note that she is working with the team members who organize todays luncheon. For all your work, bob. Onto the head table, gillian investorsreporter at business daily. Sheila is Vice President for external and corporate relations with the World Bank Group. Nancy chen, anchor at wj l. A. Chris gori eva is chief executive officer at the world bank. Over the podium, to my ,ight is Betsy Fischer martin cochair of the npc headliners team. Skipping over our guest speaker, writerorac is the senior at cnn money. Kevin is the captain with the u. S. Navy, retired, executive director of the first global challenge, thank you for your service. Bob, i did not realize we had you back at the table. A little sleight of hand and musical chairs. Now, around of applause for our head table. Thank you. Now to our guest speaker. The world bank was created in 19 44, along with the International Monetary fund, with which it is confused. The main mission of the bank issues on ageting local and community level, helping women climb the economic ladder, and improving the health of People Living in the developing world. This is the work under the 12th president. Our guest speaker holds a phd in anthropology and is also a physician. He spent most of his childhood growing up in iowa. He was the quarterback of his High School Football team. His father taught dentistry and his mother got a phd in philosophy. He is joining us today to discuss the outlook for the World Economy and some key goals for 2018 and beyond. Dr. Kim began his first president ins bank 2012. The world bank is comprised of five institutions. They have a goal of reducing poverty and boosting prosperity around the world. In other words, it is an ambitious effort. He did not come from the political or financial arenas. In health. Und is he was one of several partners in an organization providing care. Itybased health immediately prior to being nominated and elected, he served four years as president of dartmouth college. By his own admission, he was part of a movement that sought to close the world bank. He says he is clad glad that movement failed. And toalling for an extreme poverty by 2030. But how to meet those goals . At a recent press conference, he gave a hint, but had some words of caution. He said after several years of disappointing growth, the Global Economy has begun to accelerate, trade is picking up, but investment remains weak. He said Financial Market turbulence could derail the Global Economic recovery. As you can tell, we have plenty to think about today. Please give a warm welcome to dr. Kim. [applause] thank you so much. I will start with some comments, but then i look forward to the discussion. I am so glad to be here at the National Press club. The midstknow that in of frantic news cycles and competition for our attention, i and want to step back a bit reflect on what we have been doing for what i call the new foundations of human solidarity. Thoses a time when foundations are under question, and sometimes even under attack. Peace and stability are critical to our efforts to helping people lift themselves out of poverty. We recently launched a report that surveyed investors and ask them, what is most important to you when you think about investing in a developing country . Wereop three issues political stability for our work. Growth is robust worldwide. In the Second Quarter of last year, we saw the highest quarterly growth rate since 2010. Around the world, millions of people each year continue to lift themselves out of poverty. Time whens also a multiple crises are either in full bloom or looming. Pandemics and Climate Change are can tribute into an historic number people who have been forced to migrate. Countries in nearly every region are turning inward. And homegrown terrorism affects every corner of the world. It feels like increasingly the and are connected Global Community is pulling apart. Group was founded exactly to tackle these kinds of challenges. Of theread some historical documents, it is striking how much the language of that time could affect today could apply to today. We have specific goals that i will talk about in a bit. As an institution, we are part of a world order that was predicated on the notion that what affects one region can have immediate and lasting impacts on all of us. Notion that has driven our work and drives the entire multilateral system. Global prosperity was, in many ways, and american vision. President Franklin Roosevelt began looking ahead to the world beyond the war. He knew it would not be enough postwar order excuse me. Wouldxisting institutions not be enough to shape a postwar order. The United States had to build an entirely new system that would not just prevent wars, but ensure lasting peace. President roosevelt knew that stable Financial Systems work critical. He tasked his treasury secretary at the time, henry morgan paul, to design it. The Treasury Department plan for a fund to oversee Global Financial stability and a bank to support reconstruction and development was the foundation for what became the imf and the World Bank Group. In the Mount Washington resort and Bretton Woods, a group of people met. At that time, the allied forces were fighting in normandy. And so, the remarkable thing about the Bretton Woods conference is it happened when the war was still going on. China had a representative. The u. K. , under the leadership of John Maynard Keynes and henry morgan thought were the leaders but the 44 nations that attended spoke about the must critical issues. When the secretary up in the opened the conference, he said the goal was to create a dynamic World Economy in which the people of every nation would be able to realize their potentialities in peace, to raise the run their own standards of living and enjoy the fruits of material progress. Freedom of opportunity is the foundation for all other freedoms. For the past 70 years, that world order, it nato, the wto, imf, the World Bank Group, has helped ensure relative peace and stability. From the very beginning the mission was to help ensure everyone has opportunities. Freedom of opportunity. The world banks First Mission was to find reconstruction in europe. The first loan was to france. After the announcement of the Marshall Plan at a commencement address at harvard in 1946 by general marshall, the focus shifted to development and poverty reduction. The institution evolved into the World Bank Group today. Five institutions provide our countries with specialized financial tools and global knowledge. Were the only global Multilateral Development institution and the Value Proposition is that we bring knowledge from every corner of the earth to every one of our clients. The very First Institution formed was the International Bank for reconstruction and development. It uses its aaa rating, one of the best in the world, 15 basis points which is not quite as good as the u. S. Treasury but close. We issue bonds, borrow money, and provide loans to medical Income Countries. It is critical for us to invest in middle Income Countries because they are about one third of gdp. In addition to being major engines of Economic Growth, more than two thirds of People Living in poverty living middle Income Countries. Another arm of the bank is the International Development association. It was founded at the request of president eisenhower. Deep connections to the history of the United States. Requested by president eisenhower in 1960s to provide close to zero interest loans with a maturity of about 40 years. A payback time of about 40 years in grants to the worlds poorest countries. Now we have about 75 countries that qualify for these lowinterest loans. We also have a private sector arm. The International Finance corporation and vest in the private sector and developing companies. It makes equity investments. It creates markets to bring in other private sector investment. The first loan ever provided was to the German Company siemens who wanted to invest in brazil at a time when brazil was truly a frontier market. We have another agency. It helps derisk logix, sectors, entire countries by providing Political Risk enhancement. It actually invented Political Risk insurance. That is, if a Company Wants to invest in a country, purchase a company for example, and they are worried about bad things happening like for example a change of regime and the regime nationalizes that company, you can buy insurance to protect against that possibility. We invented it. There are many, Many Companies that do it. It is sometimes a Critical Link to making a country and vest company and vest or not invest. Finally, we have settlement for disputes. Arbitration for international investors. It has settled several disputes related to nafta. Every day, walking into the building we pass a huge sign that says our dream is a world free of poverty. In different ways, each arm of the World Bank Group contributes to that dream of lifting people out of poverty. One of the great Untold Stories as we made tremendous progress in the past three decades in reducing poverty. The percentage of people in the world living in extreme poverty, less than one dollar 90 cents per day, has gone from 35 30 years ago to less than 10 today. Nearly one point one billion people afflicted themselves out have lifted themselves out of poverty since 1990, the majority, of course, were in china, which was responsible for lifting 700 Million People out of extreme poverty. But there is still a tremendous amount of work to do. Some 770 Million People still live in extreme poverty today. To make the dream of a world free of poverty or reality, were using powerful financial tools. I like to say were using the tools of the rich. Rich people use these tools everyday to try to make themselves wealthier. Were trying to use these tools on their behalf of the poor. We have innovated a swap where parties Exchange Cash flows to achieve positions marmite with their risk flow. More in line with their risk profile. We invented the swap. We have swaps to mitigate currency and interest risk. We are developing new derivative instruments to manage all kinds of risks, such as commodity risks, disaster, even whether risks. We are developing new tools of the time. As we use these tools of the rich, such as leverage, swaps, derivatives, and insurance, were trying to create new ones every day that specifically are focused on serving the poor. After i became president of the World Bank Group i asked a Pretty Simple question, we say our dream is a world free of poverty but why dont we put a deadline on that so we adopted two goals. To end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity, the incomes of the bottom 40 of developing countries faster than the growth of the economy. This was our first effort to directly address the question of inequality. One year ago, i outlined the three ways we are working together. The first is to accelerate inclusive sustainable Economic Growth the second is to build resilience to shocks and threats like Climate Change, pandemics, refugees. Finally, by investing more and more effectively in people. The first strategy is to accelerate inclusive, sustainable Economic Growth. Last spring, along with our colleagues, we called for a completely different approach so we could maximize Development Purposes by systematically providing investment. Crowding in private sector investment. Everywhere we operate we are asking a simple question, how can we maximize resources . What can we do to demise at the minimize at the same time public debt . We answer the question by trying to find winwin solutions. Countries utilize these resources to meet development goals. There has never been a better time to try to crowd in private sector investment. Right now there is over 10 trillion sitting in negative Interest Rate bonds. For the nonfinancial people here, this means and set of giving your money to a bank and having the pain you interest, you give your money to a bank and you pay them to hold your money. That is what a negative Interest Rate bond is. Many have negative Interest Rate bonds and country and dollars 10 trillion are sitting in those bonds. Another 24 trillion very low yielding government securities. 5 trillion in cash. When thousand year old bills sitting in peoples safes. All of these holders of r waiting for higher returns and we think we of r waiting for higher returns, and we think we can create situations where they can both get higher returns and we can achieve development goals. We feel that the only chance we have to meet the exploding aspirations of people all over the world is to use these marketbased approaches to development. When it came time to replenish our fund for the poorest, it is not a Sustainable Business opposition unless countries donate every three years. What we did on our last replenishment was that we got a rating for ida and now we can borrow from Capital Markets with the equity that sits in ida. We were able to increase resources for africa and the poorest countries by 50 . The second filibuster is to build a resilience to overlapping shocks and crises. We are helping countries build resilience by finding new ways to share risk with the capital market. I am a medical doctor and an anthropologist. I have not been trained and financed by the the last five had not been trained in finance, but the last five years has been an intensive time for that kind of training. I was amazed at the kind of tricks that wealthy companies and wealthy people use every day that are completely legal and turn out very well for them. We are committed to using those goals. Tools. When it comes to crises like pandemic, rather than sharing our risk with Capital Markets that poor people often have to wait. We saw that with ebola. You see it again and again, panic at the height of the epidemic. You remember how panicked we were at the height of the epidemic. Panic, neglect, panic, neglect. We want to avoid what happens as people quickly forget about these pandemics after the threat subsides. This year we took a large step to break that cycle. We created something called the pandemic emergency financing facility. For the first time, we have actual pandemic and charts. A policy that would disperse funding to the poorest countries automatically when an epidemic reaches a crucial state. Were the first to provide any Financial Support during the ebola operate. That is not what we do but i happen to be an Infectious Disease doctor and i called my friends and find out this is the worst and never ever seen so we they had ever seen, so we made a commitment of 400 million, but it was probably 10 months too late. This new instrument will provide 50 million, as much as 50 my 50 million right away out of the cash window, but if the epidemic continues, once it crosses borders, once theres a certain number of cases, it will automatically disperse as much as 450 million. On a threeyear bond, pandemic bond, 450 million, is anyone going to buy this . They could lose. It is called capital at risk. Meaning all of the 450 million could absolutely be gone and they would have none of their investment left. It turns out in todays market if you offer the right Interest Rate, they will buy it. So we sold it on the Capital Markets at around 8. 7 total and now for the first time ever, we have insurance. We can move faster to prevent pandemics and now for the first time this is shared with the Financial Markets. Were asking, can we do this for other problems . Why not famine . Why not other humanitarian crises . Can we create a famine bond . Famine insurance . Humanitarian and catastrophe insurance . Were working on that now. The third pillar is to invest more effectively. Last month we announced a new, accelerated effort called the Human Capital project. We are partnering with the worlds best human Health Economists and using the power to quantify the stock of Human Capital in the world and its impact on Economic Growth. We always knew that investing in people is the right thing to do. Now we are learning that economically, it may very well be the smartest thing to do. Over the past year, we have done several different analyses and we have found investment in human beings, especially in health, education, and social protection are more powerfully correlated with Economic Growth and we previously thought. First we will grow economy, then we grow our people is the usual but it turns out investing in people is Economic Growth. It will eventually include a ranking that will be very controversial but i believe we have a moral responsibility to reveal to our shareholders the powerful relationship between investing in people and Economic Growth. More broadly, we are ready to help every single country rapidly accelerate the quality and quantity of Human Capital investments. Some of you may wonder why i use the term Human Capital. I do so because i am communicating directly with ministers of finance. This is not about charity. This is about securing the future. S economic of this is focused on ensuring equality of opportunity. President xi jinping made a very important speech in which he essentially said that the Global Market system is the ocean we also an. Any effort to turn it back to streams or lakes will fail. He sets forth a notion that the project of the quality outcomes has failed. Now, what we are trying to do is create equality of opportunity. What will that mean . How far will we have to go . What we know is that aspirations are going up everywhere. See the way everyone else lives on their smart phones, aspirations are going up. If there is no opportunity to achieve, when you have already seen how everyone else is living, it can lead people down the path of violence, extremism, and eventually, migration. As we work on poverty around the world, we play in an porton an Important Role in maintaining stability and opening markets. This is the path, we believe, to ensuring Economic Growth. Global stability and open markets are critical to the United States. I grew up in iowa. I was quarterback of the football team. People think that was cool, but we lost every single game under my great leadership. [laughter] my graduating class went to college. 90 of them went to community college. The rest went to work in factories and on family farms. As i talk to friends back home, they are going through some difficult times. Not to turns inward. According to the u. S. Chamber of commerce, International Trade supports more than 41 million american jobs. Our work helps support those jobs and creates new ones. More than 50 of all u. S. Exports are two countries where our two countries where the u. S. World bank has lending programs. Developing countries is a winwin. We are cultivating an economic and Business Climate that allows u. S. Companies to sell and compete in the developing world. One example is the ivory coast, where cocoa exports are an economic mainstay. For years, farmers mused dilapidated trucks because they didnt have credit to buy new vehicles used dilapidated trucks because they didnt have credit to buy new vehicles. We partnered with a minnesotabased car company to start an academy to train barn farmers on business skills, agricultural management, and business. Today, more than 100 20,000 farmers in the ivory coast every seve training. More than 66,000 farmers in 50 120,000 farmers in the ivory training. Received we worked on another venture training more than 50 thousand farmers in cameroon. Keeping markets open in creating new ones requires stability. Requires stability. It requires even more work in areas of fragility, conflict, violence. This is critical to our goal of ending poverty. If Current Trends continue and instability continues, we estimate that by 2030, almost 50 of the extreme poor will be living in fragile states. So, we are innovating. Towill bring more investment countries affected by fragility and conflict. We are working with partners like the United Nations to prevent conflict in countries at risk of instability. In addition to the lives saved. Saved, if we can prevent casualties and losses to Economic Growth, we will avoid over 34 billion in losses every year just by preventing conflict and violence. This isnt new work for the bank. In 1995, as war raged in experts at the world bank began preparing for postwar reconstruction. Days after the ceasefire, when the serbian section of serio was still in flames, world bank landed on the ground and began assessments. We quickly finalized a Recovery Project of 160 million. The day the peace accords were signed, the bank had lined up 500 Million Dollars from donor countries to accelerate reconstruction. Americas military leaders understand the necessity of development partners. Earlier this year, more than 120 retired generals and admirals affirmed that the military would lead the fight against terrorism on the battlefield, but needs strong civilian partners lack of opportunity, insecurity, injustice, and hopelessness. A World Bank Group is often that partner in places like iraq, for example, we are supporting the government and finding new ways to bring private investment into a country under the most difficult circumstances. Years of war and neglect have damaged iraqs energy grid leading to daily blackouts likable the economy. We help the government bring in 375 million of private financing. This is why they conflict with isis was ongoing. Not finding supported the completion of the first phase of the new power plant that will supply about half of baghdads energy. We do this with exceptional value. Over the last several decades, the International Community has contributed 19 billion to capitalize our middle income fund and ifc. Since 1945, the United States has contributed 2. 5 billion. We have been able to take that 19 billion in Overall Investment to fund more than 900 million. We are getting close to 1 trillion in loans and financing in developing countries. We have also provided put 15 billion in reserve and transferred 28 billion to either come our fund for the port. We support our own fund for the poorest. For every dollar we invest, we have an impact that his tens and even hundreds of times more powerful than if they put their money directly in the form of grants into budgets of developing countries. For most of my adult life, i have worked to provide health care for people in some of the poorest countries in the world. The organization i cofounded, partners and health, has worked for three decades around a principal we call making a preferential option for the poor, borrowing from latin American Catholic theology. An option for the poor requires us to work to ensure that everyone in our community is the focus, had access to health care, nutrition, education, and a safe place to sleep. When i became president of the World Bank Group, i brought that philosophy with me. A moral obligation to provide everyone in our client countries with opportunities to achieve their highest aspiration. Helping poor countries develop is not an exercise in charity, it is an investment in a stable, and more prosperous world. Improving stability in countries emerging from conflict and investing in poor countries wracked by hopelessness and frustration are good for the entire world including the United States. As i said before, investors above all, are looking for stability. We are working toward that goal every year. Let me make one other less obvious point. Strong american participation in multilateral institutions and Multilateral Development is an opportunity to promote principles we value as a nation, respect for self reliance, equality of opportunity, openness and fairness, and are regard to the belief our regard to the belief of others. Those principles are embedded in the institution. To go back to henry morgan bow, he told the delegates assembled in New Hampshire that the new financial order would be based on an elementary economic axiom, he said austerity has no fixed limits. It is not a finite substance to be diminished by division. The more of it that other nations enjoy, the more each nation will have for itself. For seven decades, we have helped billions lift themselves out of poverty. We have contributed to maintaining peace and stability around the world. If we have the right resources and commit to this effort, we can do the same for decades to come and help held the kind of world that we will be proud to leave to our children. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. We have a very engaged audience. We have had no shortage of questions. Having been in this position a number of times where we got no courage questions we are happy to have the audience participate. Obviously, the world banks largest shareholder is the u. S. This seems to be the point you ended your speech on about the engagement of the United States government on the global stage. The u. S. Has long supported the mission and goals of the organization. Do you worry undo the Current Administration the support for the world bank and related institutions will be cut back . Mr. Kim for 70 years, under many different administrations, we have always valued and worked hard in maintaining the relationship with the United States. I have to tell you, we are working very closely with the u. S. Government. With ivanka trump, with her advocacy, we were able to raise a huge amount, 350 million in four months which will be translated into we help a multibilliondollar fund for Women Entrepreneurs in developing countries. Ivanka has promised me she will be involved herself and mentoring these young women entrepreneurials. This is an innovation. We have never had this financing from women entrepreneurials before. We have been in discussions with other parts of the administration as well. The treasury, the u. S. Treasury, is the governor of the World Bank Group. We have been working very closely with them. The people in treasury have raised a number of very legitimate questions that we have to resolve as we are going through a process of trying to improve our capital position. That, we feel those questions are perfectly legitimate and that we have good answers for those questions. I remain optimistic. It is actually kind of rare that people from the white house would come to us with innovative ideas about what we could do. Now that people in the white house know our Business Model so well, we are hoping they will there will be more joint work. Im glad you mentioned ivanka trump. Could you talk about what her current involvement is in this project . Reporter mr. Kim the world bank, the financing will be provided to countries and individual orioles based on the rules. Ivanka will not have any role in deciding when the money goes. Her role has been an advocate for the idea. Her role will be to mentor the people who were given these grants. The process of deciding where it goes is going to go through the Standard World Bank process which includes all the Different Countries that have contributed to the fund which has been 15 countries that have contributed to the fund. What will she do . Mr. Kim it was critically important for her to have championed this fund to begin with. We are creating a network. What often happens is that we provide women with tiny loans, and the women do very well. Very few of them are able to go from those tiny loans to actually creating a formal business. That fund will help them create that business. When they create that business, we will give them access to an online virtual network. If they have a question, look, i am trying to do, but my hr system together, they would type it in or get on the phone. Then there will be a network of entrepreneurs, most of them will be Women Entrepreneurs, who will provide them direct feedback on how to solve their problems. She has told us she will be part of that network. We will come back to the issue of womens participation in the Global Economy. Lets stick on this theme of globalization and the would be reversal of it. Even the waves of nationalism that have been seen around the world, how is that affecting your Mission Today and how concerned are you about it endangering the mission in the future . Mr. Kim we are seeing lots of different Political Developments in different areas. We are by articles of agreement, we are prevented provision we are officially a nonpolitical organization. Of course, we have to watch carefully because things that happen on a political level have a huge impact on the economy. When we say policy uncertainty, we are not sure what will happen with a different trade agreement in the United States. We are not sure what will happen with brexit. Our role is to follow these developments as close as we can and prepare countries for the various things that might happen under these different political decisions. Our role is not to make any judgment on what happens politically, but to prepare for the fallout when they do happen. We understood from your speech that embarking on all these Innovative Financial strategies to take a bet against the worse case scenario, such as a pandemic, so that is placing a financial bet. If you are placing financial bets with the future of the pellicle political outlook come are you looking from backing away from globalization . Figuratively speaking. Mr. Kim i am an anthropologist. Whenever someone uses a bunch of words like globalization, my first question is, what do you mean by that . I do not see trade decreasing right now. I see trade increasing. When you have someone like president xi who makes the kind of statement he did, he was essentially saying unless we have open borders, more trade, more movement ive ideas, capital, people, the world is in trouble. We are moving in that direction. The key is to make sure if you use his analogy, if it is the ocean we all swim in, you have to make sure everyone can swim. That is what we are doing. There is always and constantly a drumbeat of saying lets not do so much for other people, lets do things for ourselves. At different times, that has gone up and down. Right before the United States joined britain in world war ii, that was exactly the conversation they were having in the United States. That kind of language goes up and down. I think it is very hard to imagine a world in which every country in the world will close up your the countries that close their border to trade will suffer because there is no talk of that in the african country that has seen latin america. The east asia, certainly. If one or two countries decide to stop trading, that will be a disaster for that country. Lets talk about the role of women. How does the world bank promote women when women entrepreneurials are a minority, what kind of role will it create the summer play in that . Mr. Kim my first came to the bank and before i came to the bank, i heard a lot about gender data. Gender informed prior progress. Is that real . It turns out the first thing you have to do is know what impact your projects are having on women. We did not collect that information. We thought these projects are working or not working. When we took the next step to say, is it working for women . In in formed it informed the data in a powerful way. Every single project before it goes to the board, we have to know what the impact on women will be. Whether women are included. We have also focused we have invested in some banks in developing countries and we have encouraged them to set up with set up specific branches for women. Women will go into their traditional banks and be ignored. The data is absolutely overwhelming. The greater participation of women will lead to significant Economic Growth. These numbers are easily quantifiable. The message is very clear that creating situations where women can work, where women have, for example, child care so they can work, these are critical for Economic Growth. These are not issues of justice alone. They are very much issues of justice but they are also is issues of Economic Growth that is left on the table a cousin you have not taken the time to make access to finance, markets, for women. We tend to be u. S. Centric in the United States. What are the challenging developing countries for women and where would you hope or expect to see progress over the coming decade . Mr. Kim there are great differences. Let me give you some examples. There are places in the world where very strict laws restrict the movement of women. There are also places in the world that are very advanced economies where still women cant participate in the economy. Korea, it is interesting, when i go to korea, because i was born there, i speak the language, i tend to be disinhibited. I say what i think to the koreans. What i said to them is sexism is one of the greatest challenges. Korea has the lowest female participation in the workforce of any country. They are literally leaving many, many gdp growth points on the table by not making it possible. Japan also has this issue. The Prime Minister has made it a priority. He is creating things like a professionalize childcare workforce. He is pushing so that women are on the boards of the major companies. He has made a part of his policy to bring women into the workforce. I think that is a very wise thing to do. It will be culturally difficult, but now korea has to focus on doing that. Other east asian economies as well. We believe that the countries that will do the best of the countries do the best are the countries who understand the importance of women. There is the role of leadership in organizations such as yours and one of those leaders sitting to my left, the questioner says because there has been so much change in the world and that has been reflected in changes in the world bank, do you think the next president of the world bank should be a nonwoman, perhaps from asia or elsewhere in the world . After all, these are the regions that still need the most from the world bank. Doesnt having an american traditionally as the head of the organization hurt its standing around the world . Mr. Kim a couple of points. First of all, when i leave the world bank, the good news is i will have no influence on who the next president of the world bank will be. For good or bad, the global system has a set of informal agreements. The head of unicef is always an american. The head of the World Health Organization is never an american. The head of the u. N. Is never from the permanent five of the security council. Americans have a few slots, one is the world food program, the other is unicef, and the other is the World Bank Group. I think the board of the world bank should choose whoever is the best candidate. There are candidates in this room that would be great. But, i think that is the issue that has to be resolved. There has been this informal dividing up of positions in the world. We will have to decide how that is going to work. Are we going to go away from that and make every position open for everyone . Maybe. But as they say, that is above my pay grade. [laughter] in terms of deciding. I think leadership can come from anywhere. I will tell you one story. A leader of a great nation in asia who i have become friends with, he asked me about the election process last year. I said to him he said to me, what is the issue . I said, i think people are sensitive of an american having this job. He looked me in the eye and in trying to give me the highest possible complement, he said but jim, we have never thought of you as an american. [laughter] you know, i have played football in high school, i am in so many ways an american, but i speak freely which is. I spend a lot of my time in africa. I think that no matter what your citizenship is, if you care about these issues, if you care enough to learn languages, if you care enough to spend time in africa and self asia, whatever your nationality, your ability to embrace the entire world should be the top criterion for becoming president of the world bank. A question about the relationship with a Current Administration. The treasury secretary rizzoli called on the banks to reduce lending to middle Income Countries that have developed significant resources of their own saying that the World Bank Program should be tailored to help fully transition those ours off donor assistance. What do you think of that and are there plans to look into that suggestion . Mr. Kim absolutely. We are looking into it now. It is a perfectly legitimate and important question for us to address. Here is how it works. We are actually a bank. People have said you guys are like a bank with a brain, or a university with a lending arm. We are both of those things. I have 3000 phds who work at the bank, the smartest people i have met in my life. It is a living, breathing, kind of an academic institution, but it is also a bank. The first rule of any bank is you have to have a diversity of investments. If we were to get outs of middle Income Countries, and some people say you should only work in fragile and conflict states, but if we did that, our aaa rating would no longer be a aaa rating. There is genius to 70 years of putting this institution together. It is a combination of less risky investments with very risky investments. We are not being asked to do riskier investments, but in order for us to do that, we have to have balance. More importantly, middle Income Countries is where the 70 plus percent of the extreme poor live. Just because of their size. If we were to neglect metalico middle Income Countries, we would have to give up on this mission of extreme poverty. We do not want to do that. This is truly a cooperative. I cant stress enough, in 1945, they were looking backwards historically. They said wars in europe of currency fluctuation that went up and down, everyone, those of you who are in the financial world, the bigger thy neighbor approaches where you tried everything you could to devalue your on current tree currency, these things were happening every day. There was no place people could go to talk together if there was conflict. Many would say that the post1945 world order has led to great things, the european union, we have had not we have not had wars in europe. In the case of the World Bank Group, it is truly a cooperative. There has been a place to go. Usually, we try to work by consensus. This is the place where despite the fact that countries will be actively at war with each other, they can get together, said at sit at the table, and talk about how can we help somalia . How can we help the refugees . What can we do after the hurricanes in the caribbean . There is a place where whatever conflict is existing on a political realm, we can talk about things that we want to do for the poorest people in the world. I cant stress to you how important it is to have that. If we got rid of the interesting institutions we would have to invent them. Again. This is a question about how things have evolved over the years. Someone asked, do you partner with organizations like a like the Gates Foundation and other peer organizations and how does that relationship work and how does it change your work . Mr. Kim one of the things ive tried to do in the last five years is to completely change the way we work with other organizations. Sheila has been at the center of that. One of the things was that i came to this job, and the secretary of United Nations my homeboy, from korea. We met, and we hit it off right away. Do you call in the . That . Mr. Kim i call him something a term of someone who has come before you. We got into culturally appropriate relationship with them where i used an honorific language with him. He did with me as well. There was one day where we were at an event and president clinton was there, and we were speaking to each other in korea. He says, what are you all talking about . You guys are going to take over the world we would go to places and we traveled a lot together. We traveled to some of the most difficult places in the world. We would be there in a room full of military people, heads of state, and we would start speaking to each other in korean. It would be about what we are going to eat tonight for dinner. They always thought something was going on. [laughter] what really was going on is that we have brought together the United Nations and the world bank in a way it has never been before. When he and i traveled for the first time to africa, he landed on the ground and said the World Bank President and the secretary general of United States had never traveled together before. So many years ago when these institutions were created, that was the idea. The person in the u. N. Who really was most important in bringing the relationship together, was Antonio Guterres with the current secretary general. We think this relationship will continue. It will get even stronger. That is the u. N. With foundations. We have made lots of effort to do more with foundations and we worked on lots of specific issues. The other thing we are doing as we are saying to the foundations and to the donor countries, we have this it is like a Global Public good, and that is our aaa rating. Because we borrow at low Interest Rates, what we are telling everybody is you can give 10 million directly or you can take the 10 million and combine it with a loan, and instead of giving 10 million of grant and 40 million of relatively high interest loans, you can combine those two. Get 50 million of 0 interest money they have to pay back in 20 years. That is a fantastic way of stretching resources which i think we will have to do more and more. You have talked about Human Capital investment. What is your view of potential impact of robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation . That has ramifications with respect to the workforce going forward. Mr. Kim i should have known, you will ask me lots of tough questions. I talked about it a little bit in the speech. Here is what worries me most. Little children will everybody have access to highspeed internet . I have heard that the latest estimates are that all of africa will have access to 4g lte by 2020. Not everyone will have a smart phone, but they will all know what someone they will all know someone who has a smartphone. What we know happens, and as we have been researching, is if you have access to the internet, you your aspirations go up. The income to which you compare your own goes up. You want a higher income, you have higher aspirations. I was born in one of the poorest countries in the world. I think having higher aspirations is great. In the context of the higher aspiration to come from looking at your smartphone, being on the internet, at the same Time Technology is eliminating a lot of tasks which will eliminate a lot of jobs. If you asked the question how many jobs currently exist which will be illuminated by automation . 66 . Ethiopia, 85 . The jobs will disappear. Will there be new jobs created . I think we have to look for completely different models for how countries will grow. The normal assumption is you go from agriculture to light manufacturing, and then to the industry. Right now, there is not a single african country that has reached the level of efficiency of bangladesh in garments. When i hear from the Printing Companies is that printing will make all the garments and shoes soon. Other people say well, maybe not so soon. This is why we are focused on Human Capital. The one thing we know will be valuable no matter what happens, no matter what direction the Global Economy goes, is Healthy People with good minds have been educated. The reason we are creating this ranking and we will create this controversy is because unless everyone gets on board with trying to improve their Human Capital, we will see a lot of extremely unhappy people with high aspirations. Thank you for that. We will bring this program for a soft landing. Before we conclude, i would like to remind the audience about upcoming events. On december 12, we will have a book event with donna brazil. I believe she has been in the news lately. She is a former chair and longtime democratic strategist who shares her new book, the inside stories and breakdowns that the donald trump in the white house. December 18, we will have an nbc headliners breakfast with Walter Isaacson and he will talk about his new book about leonardo da vinci. Before we ask the last question, we do have a traditional ceremony here at the National Press club in which we truly do present a token of our appreciation. That is the iconic National Press book coffee mug. There you go. Thank you. [applause] and our last question, this is not necessarily one of the harder questions that we could have asked today, but also obviously you are the president of the world bank. Who balances the checkbook and who balances the checkbook in your family . Mr. Kim not me. I can tell you for sure. My wife does. Let me leave it at that. [laughter] short and sweet. How about a round of applause for our guest speaker . [applause] we would like to thank our National Press club staff including the Journalism Institute and the Broadcast Center for organizing todays events or you can find more information about the National Press club on our website. You can get a copy of todays program. Please visit press. Org. With that we are adjourned. , [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspan, where history unfold daily. In 1979 cspan1s creative like americas Cable Television companies. It is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Next, a look at how character and other attributes or control significant to the presidency. Hear from New York Times columnist david brooks and historian ronald white discuss the presidency, comparing past administrations to the trump administration. In grand rapids michigan, this is grand rapids, michigan, this is one hour 15 minutes. [applause] so character and the presidency is quite a subject, isnt it . [laughter] here in grand rapids, we are lucky to enjoyed a fine example of moral courage in the presidency of gerald ford. We thought we would open tonights program with a brief
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