Correspondents: China is trying its best to bring Africa out of poverty. The World Bank is also doing the same thing. How could China and the World Bank work together to help Africa?

Paul Wolfowitz: Good question! I think there are several ways. First, we can coordinate our mutual activities and maybe develop some joint activities. The World Bank does that with a number of major donors. It takes a little more work to develop joint programs, but the benefit is that when you have done that work, everybody is aiming in the same direction.

Second, the more dialogue we have with China, the better we can coordinate. The third area is through the mechanism of what we call IDA (International Development Association). China is not a donor of IDA, but now it is a member of IDA, it has its basic contribution to IDA. China has gone from being a major recipient of IDA assistance. China is no longer a recipient. I would hope at some point China could become an IDA donor. The reason why I mention IDA is that it is a mechanism for pooling resources and then working things out on a multilateral basis. If China has a stronger voice in IDA, it would be helpful for African countries too.

Correspondents: The World Bank is helping developing countries develop their own economies. Do you think there will be any policy adjustment in the future in that regard?

Paul Wolfowitz: If you go back 30 or 40 years, the main thing the World Bank does is giving money to build big investment projects. Our experience taught two things: sometimes those big investment projects are the wrong things, we need to be more thoughtful about what is useful and about what is sustainable development versus what things damage the environment or sacrifice long-term gains. It still remains the case that we spend money to finance projects that are needed for development and it is still one of the central things we do. I think we've changed though ¡§C some of the most important investments are not in physical capital but in human capital, health and education in particular. If you compared how the World Bank was 30 years ago and how we are today, you can see we have more financing of soft investment like health and education.

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