World Bank Group Chairman Jim Yong Kim on Friday congratulated the government of Peru on the progress made in the social field at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) currently underway in Lima.
"We’re very grateful for the warm welcome from President Humala and the people of Peru. The preparations have been exceptional for this gathering; the first Annual Meetings in Latin America since 1967," the top WBG official told.
Thus, "I’m very pleased to be back in Peru," Jim underlined.
This country is a "far more prosperous" and a "just society today" than a generation ago. Over the past 10 years, Peru’s GDP has increased at an average rate of over 6% each year.
During the boom years, strong domestic demand and high commodity prices fueled a decade of robust growth.
"Growth was inclusive and the size of the middle class became larger than that of the poor," he noted.
However, the risks posed by world's financial slowdown.
"Peru, like other countries in Latin America, is now feeling the headwinds of a slowing global economy with lower commodity prices that may stay depressed for some time and an exodus of capital from developing countries that seems to be accelerating," he mentioned.
Carabayllo
The WBG top official reminded his trip to Lima's peripheral Carabayllo district located about 20 miles away from the WGB/IMF venue. In the past, he helped establish an NGO there called Socios en Salud, it was 1993.
The next year, he discovered an alarming number of patients suffering from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, a form of tuberculosis that is resistant to the most powerful and effective medicines. At the time the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested the crew "not to take on this fight" given that drugs were too expensive, among other reasons. Similarly, the government of Peru at the time ordered them not to treat the disease.
"Despite our fears of getting evicted from Peru, we started treating the patients," the anthropologist reminded.
"Our work, in turn, had a huge impact, the courageous health workers and patients of Carabayllo helped prove to the world that a small band of committed doctors, nurses, and community health workers could successfully treat a complicated disease in a poor community," Jim expressed.
This led the WHO and Peruvian government to change their policies. It recommended that persons with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis should be treated, "no matter the cost, no matter where they lived, and no matter whether they were rich or poor."
"The lessons of Carabayllo are quite clear to me: First listen to the aspirations of the poor and lift up your own to meet them; and second, don't be afraid to make the tough decision and do the right thing even if you have to stand alone," he pointed out.
Remarks were made at the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the WBG and the IMF's plenary session held in Lima on Friday.
(END) MVB
Published: 10/9/2015