Kim champions knowledge in building 'solutions bank'

(China Daily) Updated: 2012-12-05 10:29

Besides the knowledge hub and urbanization project, in what other areas would you expect to cooperate with China?

We still provide loans for China, and the reason that China continues to get loans from China is that we bring both money and knowledge to the table at the same time.

And until China graduates from the World Bank sometime in the future, we will continue to provide loans and continue to get deeply engaged with knowledge.

And one of the newest things for the World Bank is that we will help countries that graduate from the World Bank improve the investment climate and business environment.

What is your impression of Chinese officials?

The government officials I met are extremely impressive. We had very frank and direct conversations.

I told them that the World Bank will get deeply engaged with China, and they said they still valued the relationship with us very much.

I think the establishment of the knowledge hub and also the report on urbanization is a very good indication of what our relationship will be like in the future. I think it will grow.

As a Korean-American and head of the World Bank, do you believe that your South Korean origin will assist you in communicating and cooperating with China in a better and effective way?

I really hope so, because I feel I understand the culture, the language and the way they think. In South Korea, we still use Chinese characters. Although I don't speak Chinese, I can understand so many words.

There are so many fundamental aspects of Chinese culture that are so similar to Korean culture. When I am here, I know the language is different, but in so many ways, the two cultures feel so familiar to me. And I hope this is helpful.

Do you believe your background as a physician and an anthropologist could in some way help you in your current job and in advancing the concept of the "solutions bank" you insist on? And will this make you different from the previous heads of the World Bank?

There are many differences between me and the other heads of the World Bank. Part of this is that I am a development professional. The World Bank is a bank, but it is a development bank. It's special.

The fact that I have been in so many developing countries working on development gives me very high-level familiarity with my current position. I feel very comfortable in this role.

Being an anthropologist is extremely helpful to me in the sense that before going to the World Bank I spent a lot of time trying to understand the culture of it.

In development, what I think is very important is that you have to understand that every country is different and every region is different. If you come in thinking you have all the answers and telling people what to do, you are going to have trouble.

So the anthropologist in me is very focused. I am sure to understand the context and be respectful to other cultures, and won't try to come in and provide my own answers to a particular problem, but try to be clear and helpful in the context of a particular culture.

How would you describe yourself?

I am a very optimistic person. Many people say you worked in Haiti, you worked in Peru, so how can you be optimistic? But my own view is, when you work with very poor people, you have to be optimistic. If you are a person who has access to resources and you go to a poor setting, and you are pessimistic, then it's not hopeful.

You have to be optimistic. Today, to see a 90-year-old mother and her son, who have been digging water out of a dirty well for decades and decades, have running water and gas at home, this makes me feel optimistic. And to see what happened with a province that was devastated by an earthquake, this gives me optimism.

I feel that optimism is not a feeling that you have based on analysis. I feel optimism is your choice. When you go to the worst situation, you have to bring out all of your optimism. Being in Sichuan (which is recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2008) makes me feel more optimistic than before.