No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better - because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.
Unless you invest in people, you are not going to see growth in the long term, the medium term, and maybe even the short term.
We will never end poverty if we don't tackle climate change.
One of the most important things about leadership is that you have to have the kind of humility that will allow you to be coached.
When you're working on development issues, optimism is not always based on rational analysis, often it is a moral choice.
We need to have a plan equal to the challenge.
Today there are a lot places where people say they're just hopeless. If I can come from a hopeless country, get an education, become a hyphenated American and become president of the World Bank, it's my moral duty to make sure that every single person on the planet has that opportunity.
Ending poverty and ensuring sustainability are the defining challenges of our time. Energy is central to both of them.
A lot of young people dont think they can make a difference. Thats really what I am at Dartmouth to do. Im there to tell the young people, Look, a few committed souls can change the world.
If we do not act to curb climate change immediately, we will leave our children and grandchildren an unrecognizable planetIt is the poor, those least responsible for climate change and least able to afford adaptation, who would suffer the most.
I want to eradicate poverty. I think that theres a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.
We have to find climate-friendly ways of encouraging economic growth. The good news is we think they exist.
Why is it that when it comes to our most cherished social goal [health care], we not only tolerate poor execution, sometimes we even celebrate it?
What happens when corn and wheat prices rise is that we see real increases in malnutrition and under-nutrition. And when children are malnourished, their brain development actually slows down and is affected. So this is not just a short-term impact.
Water and sanitation has not had the same kind of champion that global health, and even education, have had.
There will be water and food fights everywhere.
Carbon is the currency of how you measure climate change, but water will be the teeth.
