World Bank Group President Jim Yong KimInclusive Governance: The Foundation for Building Human Opportunity and ProsperityDubai, United Arab Emirates
As Prepared for Delivery
February 8, 2016
The speech of Dr. Jim Yong Kim at the World Government Summit is remarkable and touched on several crucial and critical socioeconomic issues that are directly related to preventing fraud and corruption. Quality leadership, good governance, among other things, are always needed for sustainable development. It is our belief that this speech should be a pillar of any kind of good governance.
As good governance is not a new phenomenon, we quote part of what Dr. Kim mentioned in his speech:
February 8, 2016
The speech of Dr. Jim Yong Kim at the World Government Summit is remarkable and touched on several crucial and critical socioeconomic issues that are directly related to preventing fraud and corruption. Quality leadership, good governance, among other things, are always needed for sustainable development. It is our belief that this speech should be a pillar of any kind of good governance.
As good governance is not a new phenomenon, we quote part of what Dr. Kim mentioned in his speech:
" Governments that operate in opaque, exclusive and unaccountable ways, or fail to empower local authorities, often plant the seeds of discontent. When governments don’t allow the public to participate in decisions, they breed suspicion; when governments make decisions on the basis of favoritism, social or ethnic divisions, discrimination or corruption, citizens become deeply aggrieved."
"The demands for good governance, in fact, are not a recent phenomenon. The demands are rooted in the traditions and history of many cultures, including the Arab and Islamic world. The scholar Imam Muslim recounted words said by the prophet, quote, “One whom I appoint to a public office must render account on everything, big and small.” The Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote in his opus, the Muqqaddimah, that the social compact between the individual and tribes was a sacred bond based on mutual accountability, protection, and proper and reliable delivery of such basic services as security and justice. Ibn Khaldun said the worst kind of state is a tyranny wherein government usurps property rights and rules with injustice against the rights of men."
"Another inspiring figure to me is the Palestinian intellectual and writer Edward Said. His book Orientalism, which is largely about how Westerns perceive the East, had a profound impact on my thinking. He also focused on the power of good governance. He once wrote, and I quote:
"The demands for good governance, in fact, are not a recent phenomenon. The demands are rooted in the traditions and history of many cultures, including the Arab and Islamic world. The scholar Imam Muslim recounted words said by the prophet, quote, “One whom I appoint to a public office must render account on everything, big and small.” The Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote in his opus, the Muqqaddimah, that the social compact between the individual and tribes was a sacred bond based on mutual accountability, protection, and proper and reliable delivery of such basic services as security and justice. Ibn Khaldun said the worst kind of state is a tyranny wherein government usurps property rights and rules with injustice against the rights of men."
"Another inspiring figure to me is the Palestinian intellectual and writer Edward Said. His book Orientalism, which is largely about how Westerns perceive the East, had a profound impact on my thinking. He also focused on the power of good governance. He once wrote, and I quote:
“Power, after all, is not just military strength. It is the social power that comes from democracy, the cultural power that comes from freedom of expression and research, the personal power that entitles every Arab citizen to feel that he or she is in fact a citizen, and not just a sheep in some great shepherd’s flock.”"
