Ewuraba - Professional African Women with Class and Style

It was a tough time to join the Bank. After she was appointed by the outgoing president Paul Wolfowitz, there was speculation that his forced departure would damage both the Bank and its officials. But ‘Madame Due Process’ insists otherwise.

There are quiet signs that Africa is on the brink of economic take-off. Ten years of growth around five percent has focused minds on what works - after ignoring infrastructure in favour of other models of economic development for decades, a consensus is emerging among the multilateral development banks that roads, ports and railways are needed before anything else can be addressed. The business climate is (slowly) improving. Stability is returning, inflation is down. China, a key factor behind the commodity boom that is filling African coffers, is also part of the infrastructure-building solution. An engagement which goes beyond fear of exploitation is emerging. Fitting into this dynamic is a challenge for the Bank.

How do you think the Bank’s standing in the world might have been tarnished by recent events?

I definitely know that this institution can be a force for good for Africa, and therefore the relevance of the knowledge, the repository of knowledge that the Bank possesses for the continent, is too strategic for anyone to downplay. It has great convening powers that it can use to attract the greatest goodwill of all important spheres, all important sectors and groups on the issues for Africa. It has the lending portfolio on a concessional basis, the IDA, which a number of small economies on the continent need to invest in human capital and human development, infrastructure and institutional capacity.

You cannot downplay that, so, as far as I can see, the Bank remains very relevant for Africa, and relevant for the rest of the world because more than a billion people that we still have in the world living in abject poverty represent a good reason why institutions like the Bank should exist. These reasons tower above the challenges it has faced in recent times, and it should come out of this challenge stronger, with a greater focus on its mission and asking itself the most important internal questions that it needs to resolve in order to strengthen its capacity to deliver on its mandate.

What is the African view of former Bank President Paul Wolfowitz’s successor, Robert Zoellick?

The important thing that we have heard from President Robert Zoellick is that he is now an international public servant. We have seen a tough trade negotiator being a tough trade negotiator for Africa. A tough negotiator is the best thing that anyone can be for the continent. He says that Africa remains the biggest priority for the Bank. It is a winwin situation for the continent. He is in a unique position to weigh in on the debates on agricultural subsidies and trade. You could not have found a better person to be able to provide the strong leadership that the Bank needs to be seen as providing for a number of the very weak countries that hardly have a voice in the Doha round discussions. Their voice is still very marginal to the process, and the analytical work that the Bank is able to do so well on… issues of trade distortions and structural issues that affect the global competitiveness of the economies in the region, would stand in good stead with his leadership.

Do you think that the G8 summits risk becoming grotesque beauty contests where each of the rich countries try to outdo one another in pledges, and in fact few of these pledges turn into reality?

I think that clearly the G8 is listening more. People are now well aware of the pledges and are looking for concretisation, and for the cheques to be signed. There are a couple of issues like the whole private-sector thing, the continuous focus on HIV/AIDS, the high-level commitment to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), and the technical capacity support that are there, but people also want to see that we are performing on what we committed to in Gleneagles. Many more countries are keeping to what was discussed, and we are seeing many more impressive outcomes in the continent, in good governance measures, in improving the climate for business, in making very tough policy choices, and ensuring that the policy choices enable macroeconomic stability, in greater focus of internal resources towards the key priority sectors of health, education, water and sanitation so that poverty-reduction strategy programmes are really aligned to the critical sectors… Africa is reforming because they believe in those reforms, because they are doing these reforms, they believe that friends who have said that they will try their best to complement your effort will also keep to their words.