51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Duke & Duchess of Cambridge three day visit: William meets Obama / makes speech; More Jim Yong Kim speech Prince William (Duke of Cambridge) speech SOT Dr Kim, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your extremely warm welcome on this my first visit to Washington. I am grateful for the opportunity to talk to you about a subject extremely close to my heart, the illegal wildlife trade. The World Bank is a fitting place to make this speech, founded as it was not only on expertise, but on ideals. 70 years ago, at its birth, it was a Bank for a war-shocked world, needed to reconstruct the shattered economies of Europe, and so prevent future conflict. But even then the World Bank had a wider purpose: to raise living standards everywhere and, in the words of John Maynard Keynes, "to make the resources of the world more fully available to all mankind". That task of worldwide development remains a noble ideal and a vital service to humanity. As you know, huge progress has been made. In our lifetimes, millions of people will have lifted themselves out of poverty. But stubborn impediments to development remain, of which corruption is one of the most persistent and damaging. Tomorrow is UN Anti-Corruption Day, and I pay tribute to the courageous individuals who labour against corruption worldwide, often risking their jobs and even their lives. At its heart, all corruption is an abuse of power; the pursuit of money or influence at the expense of society as a whole. Worst of all, it weighs most heavily upon the world's poorest and most powerless people. It deepens their hardship, stifles opportunity, distorts justice and undermines development. Where corrupt hands tear down faster than clean hands can build, escaping from the trap of poverty or conflict is much more difficult. In my view, one of the most insidious forms of corruption and criminality in the world today is the illegal wildlife trade. Here, criminal gangs turn vast pro...