The outcome of the Doha trade round is more important to poor countries' economies than the US-led war with Iraq, World Bank President James Wolfensohn said on Monday.
He also warned that some of those countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will need extra help and an effort on their part to push on with reforms if they are to meet the United Nations target of cutting poverty in half by 2015.
"The Doha round is more important to most of the developing countries than is the Iraq war," Wolfensohn said in an interview with Reuters.
He called the Doha talks a "dialogue of the deaf" because of the gulf which exists between the countries taking part.
Failure of the 145 member nations of the World Trade Organization to agree on targets and objectives for farm trade talks by the March 31 deadline was a serious setback for the Doha round.
The Doha round, launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001, is aimed primarily at opening new markets around the world for farm goods, industrial products and a range of services, such as express delivery, insurance and banking.
The WTO is pushing members to cut farm export subsidies, tariffs and domestic spending programs. Poor countries, many dependent on agriculture, are a focus of the trade round which is supposed to be completed by January 2005.
All eyes on Iraq
Wolfensohn said it was natural for the global community to focus on the immediate problem of the Iraq war rather than on longer-term issues of development.
"When there is a war going on, where there is a challenge to the transatlantic alliance, where Europe is split politically, it's a time when people are focusing on getting the water out of the boats so they don't sink rather than thinking about less immediate issues," he said.
The bank chief said he has been watching carefully to see if tensions between some countries over the US-led war are spilling into shareholder meetings at the World Bank board where the country members sit to make decisions.
"So far we've not seen any infection. We've seen a few jokes," he said, adding that he believes the ministers coming to Washington this weekend for the spring meetings of the bank will be "well-behaved" on
He said the Iraq war had moved the reconstruction of war-battered Afghanistan out of the spotlight and he urged the international community to keep up support for the country.
"I think what is troublesome for (President Hamid) Karzai is that what they need is the assurance of a supply of funds so that they came make commitments to rebuild their country," he said.
"You can't rebuild a country in six monthly installments."
Afghan officials have warned the country could turn into a Mafia drug state if the international community does not maintain its commitment to rebuilding.
Poverty goals off track
A World Bank paper for discussion at the spring meetings found that many poor countries will miss United Nations poverty-reduction goals unless rich countries dig into their coffers to help and poor countries work to better manage their budgets.
Wolfensohn said he saw no need to change or scrap the goal although he thought some countries would fail to meet them.
"I have to say I have doubts about the achievements of the goals for sub-Saharan Africa," he said. "They will be seriously met in East Asia, less well met in South Asia and met reasonably well in Latin America."
He also said Islamic scholars who have studied development progress of Islamic countries "have great doubts" those countries will meet the targets.
One of the goals is to ensure all primary school age children have access to education by 2015. Rich country donors met in Paris two weeks ago to try and raise more than $400 million to plug a hole in the education program for seven countries over the next three years.
Wolfensohn said they managed to find $200 million and he said expects the rest will come. But he said the program will need much larger sums of money in the years ahead.
He said a program to fund debt relief for poor countries will not be on the agenda at this weekend's World Bank meeting because the donors have found the money needed to fund current demands on the heavily indebted poor countries initiative (HIPC).
"We've got the money we need for the immediate future and the concern is that at some point we'll want to come back and take another look at the whole thing," he said. "But not at this meeting."
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