Remarks by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim at TICAD-V opening plenary session

The World Bank Group is pleased to be a co-organizer of TICAD, and it is an honor to commemorate both the 50th Anniversary of the OAU/AU and the 20th Anniversary of TICAD. It is important to reflect on what has been achieved during these past decades. Because of course, there is so much to be proud of. He would like to particularly commend the TICAD process for its emphasis on ownership and partnership, for championing Asian-African cooperation, and for underscoring the centrality of human security to development. As part of the World Bank Group’s new strategy, we are promising to further strengthen our commitment to states rebounding from fragility and conflict. He will adopt more agile operational policies and practices, something many of you talk to me all the time; he will deploy incentives to motivate our best staff to serve in fragile and conflict-affected states; and we’ll increase financing for these countries from IDA, while also working to leverage private sector investments. The World Bank Group’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, will focus much more of its efforts and resources in these countries.