Wolfowitz wants to focus World Bank on 'real world priorities'

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) — As new World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz wants to focus on "real world priorities" rather than procedural matters involving the international organization, he said just hours before assuming his new post.

"I'd like to focus, as much as I can, on the real world priorities ... try to change the organisation in different ways to make it more effective ... to deal with real priorities," Wolfowitz told a group of reporters on Tuesday.

While he lauded his predecessor James Wolfensohn for leaving the World Bank "in a pretty good shape," the new president stressed the "concern from developing countries that they are not listened to enough and that they are treated as clients rather than partners."

"I would like to work very hard at changing...