Today, you have 20 percent of the world controlling 80 percent of the Gross Domestic Product; you've got a $30 trillion (US) world economy, and $24 trillion of it is in the developed countries... These inequities can't exist. So if you are talking about systemic breakdown, I think you have to look in terms of social breakdown.
James WolfensohnWhat we need to do is increase the totality of money that is given to the poorest areas and then we can do more on prevention but we have crucial needs at the moment just to get people out of poverty and to get the eight hundred million people that go to bed at night hungry, give them some food and some hope.
James WolfensohnI think that's one of the reasons for the Sarajevo conference, that Yugoslavia, Serbia, return to the family of nations because enduring peace can only come when you have Serbia within that framework.
James WolfensohnI was deeply concerned then, and have become more concerned since, that unless we can deal with the questions of development and the questions of poverty, there's no way that we're going to have a peaceful world for our children.
James WolfensohnWe have three billion people, half the world's population today, living on less than two dollars a day.
James WolfensohnIt's going to be possible to rebuild the physical aspects of Kosovo. I was there recently, and you get a sense of the destruction of homes. Infrastructure and the countryside is relatively untouched. I think the biggest problem will not be the physical reconstruction; it will be the emotional and mental reconstruction.
James Wolfensohn