世界銀行行長在霍華德大學英語演講

Dean Harvey, thank you for that warm welcome and, President Frederick, thank you for the kind introduction. And thank you to the students, staff and faculty for being excellent hosts. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a president of the World Bank Group has addressed the Howard community. I am grateful to everyone here who made this opportunity possible.

哈維院長，謝謝你的熱情歡迎;弗裏德里克校長，謝謝你的介紹詞。感謝所有前來的學校師生和員工。據我們瞭解，這是世界銀行集團行長第一次在霍華德大學發表講話。我向所有促成此事的人員表示感謝。

In preparing for this speech, we did some research on Howard’s history. I was impressed with what we found. I am honored to be at an institution once led by James Nabrit, one of the leading constitutional and civil rights lawyers of his generation; and I am humbled to be at a place that helped shape the thinking of Pauli Murray, a courageous feminist trailblazer and thinker. Over varied and highly accomplished careers, both Nabrit and Murray worked to make the world a more just place. At the Bank, we are driven by the same aspiration.

在準備這次演講的過程中，我們對霍華德大學的歷史做了一些瞭解，而瞭解到的情況給我留下了深刻印象。今天來到這個曾由著名憲法和民權律師詹姆斯·納布里特領導的大學，我深感榮幸;而在這個曾塑造了女權主義先鋒和思想家保莉·莫瑞思想的學府發表演講，也讓我不勝惶恐。納布里特和莫瑞通過他們多樣而成功的事業使這個世界變得更好。而在世界銀行，也正是這樣的願望激勵着我們的工作。

Over the last two years, I have led an effort at the World Bank Group to reorganize the institution to accomplish our twin goals: end extreme poverty by 2030; and boost shared prosperity among the poorest 40 percent in developing countries.

在過去兩年裏，我領導了世界銀行集團進行重組，以實現我們的兩個目標：一是到2030年前終結極度貧困;二是促進發展中國家最貧困的40%人口共享繁榮。

The first goal is ambitious, and it reflects the tremendous progress we’ve made over the last quarter century in the fight against poverty. In 1990, 36 percent of the world’s population, or 1.9 billion people, earned less than $1.25 a day. By next year, our economists estimate that that rate will have declined to 12 percent – a two-thirds reduction in 25 years. This means that, by next year, one billion fewer people will be living in extreme poverty than in 1990. That’s major progress. However, helping the next billion escape poverty will be far more difficult. We have much work to do, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 450 million people wake up in poverty each day.

第一個目標非常宏大，它也反映了過去四分之一世紀我們在抗擊貧困方面所取得的巨大進展。1990年，世界上36%的人口——即19億人——每天收入不到1.25美元。而到明年，根據世行經濟學家的估計，這個比例將下降到12%。也就是說，全球貧困人口比例在25年內下降了三分之二。這意味着到明年爲止，世界上生活在極度貧困中的人口將比1990年減少10億人。這是巨大的進步。但是，幫助下一個10億人擺脫貧困將是更爲艱鉅的任務。我們還有很多工作要做，特別是在撒哈拉以南非洲，那裏有大約4.5億人每天早上醒來就面對着貧困。

The second goal – boosting shared prosperity – is what I want to talk with you about today. We are working to ensure that the growth of the global economy will improve the lives of all members of society, not only a fortunate few. To accomplish this, the World Bank Group aims to achieve specific income-related and social goals: We want to raise the income of the lowest 40 percent of earners in developing countries, and improve their access to life’s essentials, including food, shelter, health care, education and jobs.

而第二個目標——促進共享繁榮，是我今天想與你們討論的重點。我們正在努力工作，以確保全球經濟增長可以改善社會上所有人的生活，而不只是少數幸運兒從中受益。爲此，世界銀行集團力求實現具體的收入目標和社會目標：我們要提高發展中國家收入最低的40%的人口的收入，改善他們對生活必需品的獲取，包括食品、住房、醫療、教育和就業。

Let me put this in perspective: For the first time in the history of the World Bank Group, we have set a goal that aims to reduce global inequality. As the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa shows, the importance of this objective could not be more clear. The battle against the virus is a fight on many fronts – human lives and health foremost among them. But it is also a fight against inequality. The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the virus exists in high and middle income counties. However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. So now, thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place. If we do not stop Ebola now, the infection will continue to spread to other countries and even continents – just yesterday the Centers for Disease Control confirmed the first case of Ebola in the United States. This pandemic shows the deadly cost of unequal access to basic services and the consequences of our failure to fix this problem.

讓我從歷史的角度來強調一下“促進共享繁榮”的重大意義：這是世界銀行集團歷史上首次確立一個旨在減少全球不平等的目標。正如西非埃博拉疫情所表明的，減少不平等的重要性不言而喻。抗擊埃博拉是一場全方位的戰鬥——最重要的是保護人的生命和健康，但它同時也是一場反抗不平等的戰鬥。高收入和中等收入國家擁有治療埃博拉病人、控制病毒擴散的知識和基礎設施。但很多年來，我們未能使幾內亞、利比里亞和塞拉利昂的低收入者獲得和使用這些知識和基礎設施。所以，現在這些國家幾千人因感染埃博拉死亡，只是因爲他們運氣不好，出生在錯誤的地方。如果我們現在不能控制西非的埃博拉病毒，疫情就會繼續向其他國家甚至其他大陸傳播——就在昨天，美國疾病控制中心證實在美國發現了首例埃博拉感染。埃博拉的流行顯示了由於人們不能平等獲得基本服務而產生的高昂代價以及因爲我們未能解決這個問題而產生的嚴重後果。

As I will discuss later in my remarks, the World Bank Group and others have begun to take steps to get resources into the right place. Our actions have arisen directly from our decision to make boosting shared prosperity part of the Bank’s primary mission.

待會兒我會談到，世界銀行集團和其他機構已開始採取步驟，向有關地區部署資源，控制疫情。我們的行動直接源於我們把促進共享繁榮作爲世行主要使命的決定。

When a visitor enters our Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, one of the first things she sees is an inscription on the wall that reads as follows: “Our dream is a world free of poverty.” While achieving this goal through development is a complex undertaking, two things are essential. First, we must help low-income countries grow their economies. In the last four years alone, high rates of growth in China and India have meant that 232 million people no longer live in poverty. Second, low-income people who live in low-income countries must share in the gains from that growth. Shared prosperity is part of the Bank’s headline goals simply because it is required to end poverty.

當參觀者進入位於賓西法尼亞大街的世行集團總部時，首先映入她眼簾的是牆上的這樣一句標語：“我們的夢想是一個沒有貧困的世界。”儘管通過發展來實現這個目標是一項複雜的任務，但有兩點是最基本的。首先，我們必須幫助低收入國家發展經濟。僅在過去四年裏，中國和印度經濟的高速增長就使2.32億人擺脫了貧困。第二，生活在低收入國家的低收入人口也必須能夠分享增長的成果。共享繁榮之所以成爲世界銀行的一個核心目標，就是因爲只有這樣才能消滅貧困。

Boosting shared prosperity is also important in the pursuit of justice. Oxfam International, the poverty fighting organization, recently reported that the world’s richest 85 people have as much combined wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion. Think about that: A group far smaller than the number of people in this room possesses more wealth than half the world’s population. With so many people in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Asia, and Latin America, living in extreme poverty, this state of affairs is a stain on our collective conscience. Protecting an individual’s ability to reap financial reward for hard work and success is extremely important. It creates motivation; it drives innovation; and it permits people to help others. At the same time, what does it mean that so much of the world’s enormous wealth has accrued to so few?

促進共享繁榮對實現社會公正也意義重大。根據扶貧組織國際樂施會最近發表的一份報告，世界上最富有的85個人所擁有的財富加起來相當於最貧困的36億人所擁有的財富。想一想吧：人數遠遠少於今天這個會場人數的一羣人佔有的財富比世界上一半人口的財富還要多。在當前撒哈拉以南非洲、亞洲和拉丁美洲還有許多人生活在極度貧困中的情況下，這種不平等可謂是我們集體良知的一個污點。確保每個人可以從辛勤勞動中獲得財務收益和成功非常重要——這可以激勵人們努力工作，推動創新，還可以使富起來的人有條件去幫助他人。但與此同時，我們必須思考的一個問題是：世界上這麼多財富集中在這麼少的人手中，這到底意味着什麼?

As an economic system, global market capitalism has produced affluence and innovation. These are very good things. However, an economic system’s legitimacy is also tied to its ability to make two things accessible to all: the riches it generates and the social benefits that arise from that wealth. Unfortunately, national income gains from growth tend not to be shared among a population in anything close to equal measure. In his 2014 best seller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty showed that, in developed economies, these gains generally flow at substantially higher rates to owners than to workers. Ultimately, we want to ensure the global economic system’s gains are distributed in a fashion that creates opportunity and respects human dignity.

作爲一種經濟體系，全球市場資本主義創造了大量財富，推動了創新。這些都是非常好的事情。但是，一種經濟體系的合法性也與它是否能幫助所有人獲得以下兩樣東西息息相關：該體系所創造的財富以及這些財富所帶來的社會收益。不幸的是，經濟增長帶來的財富通常不能平等地被國民分享。法國經濟學家托馬斯·皮凱蒂在他2014年的暢銷書《21世紀的資本》中指出，在發達國家，資本的所有者從經濟增長中得到的益處通常要大大高於勞動者。歸根結底，我們要確保以一種有助於創造機會、尊重人的尊嚴的方式來分配全球經濟體系產生的收益。

So what does it look like to boost shared prosperity? As I explained earlier, one important metric is the relative income level of the poorest 40 percent of a national population. During the 2000s, these earners enjoyed more rapid income growth rates than the general population in 52 out of 78 low-income countries. But our mixed progress in achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals shows that the general well-being of households in the bottom 40 percent remains much lower than in higher-income households. In other words, even though their incomes grew faster, low-income households did not reap the same social benefits as the more affluent, including access to food, clean water and sanitation.

那麼，如何來促進共享繁榮呢?我前面已經提到，一個重要的衡量指標就是一國中最窮的40%人口的相對收入水平。在2000年代，在全球78個低收入國家中的52個，這些勞動者的收入增長速度快於全國總體收入增長。但我們在聯合國“千年發展目標”各領域取得的進展參差不齊，表明收入最低的40%人口的總體生活水平仍大大低於收入更高的家庭。換句話說，儘管低收入家庭的收入增長較快，但他們還是沒能象更富有的家庭那樣充分從經濟發展中受益——包括改善對食品、清潔用水和衛生設施的獲取。

Fundamentally, increasing individual incomes, while important, is only part of the equation for boosting shared prosperity. We also need economic growth to deliver benefits that create more just societies. So, in addition to changes in income, boosting shared prosperity focuses on improving gender equity and low income people’s access to food, shelter, clean water, sanitation health care, education and jobs.

根本上來說，提高個人的收入固然重要，但它只是推動共享繁榮的一個方面。我們需要通過經濟增長來創造更公平的社會。因此，除了增加收入外，促進共享繁榮的工作還要特別重視提高性別平等，改善低收入人口對食品、住房、清潔的水、衛生設施和醫療保健、教育和就業機會的獲取。