Kim will promote shared prosperity during trips to Peru, Chile, and Bolivia
WASHINGTON DC, June 27 2013 – World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will meet Peru's Ollanta Humala and participate in the signing ceremony of a basic education program, as part of a three-country visit to South America from June 29-July 7. Kim will also travel to Chile to meet President Sebastian Piñera and to Bolivia, where he is scheduled to sign a quinoa farming agreement with President Evo Morales.
In meetings with some of Latin America’s most influential political, civil society and business leaders, Kim will bring to the fore the Bank’s renewed commitment to reduce extreme poverty and to include more Latin Americans in the region’s prosperity. In April, the World Bank Group’s governors endorsed the goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity among the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries. The Bank will publish annual reports on progress toward the two goals.
“As I prepare to travel to Latin America, I see a region that has come a long way from the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s, and is emerging as a driver of global growth. But we have much more to do, to ensure that Latin America’s people share in their region’s growing prosperity,” Kim said.
With Peru as his first scheduled stop on June 29, Kim will review rural projects in the former Inca capital of Cusco, now a vibrant center for sustainable farming; he will also look at progress made against tuberculosis in vulnerable areas, an undertaking Kim helped to develop during his years heading Partners in Health in Lima in the early 1990s. The World Bank’s top official will also discuss reducing poverty with students at a town hall meeting in Peru’s Pontificia Universidad Católica.
About 6 million students from 40,000 schools in Peru stand to benefit from the basic education agreement which looks at improving quality of teaching and transparency in the selection of school principals.
In Chile, Kim is scheduled to meet July 4 with President Sebastian Piñera and members of his cabinet to review the Bank’s technical assistance program there.
Kim will then travel to Bolivia on July 6 to meet President Evo Morales and sign a Memorandum of Understanding supporting the country’s sustainable production of quinoa and other Andean products.
“Delivering on the promise of growth will require Latin American policy makers, along with their partners in the development community, including the World Bank, to ensure that economic gains benefit all citizens,” Kim said.
Kim said that one of his main messages on the trip will be that the Bank’s role is to help governments include more people in the region’s economic growth.
