What happens when corn and wheat prices rise is that we see real increases in malnutrition and under-nutrition. And when children are malnourished, their brain development actually slows down and is affected. So this is not just a short-term impact.
— Jim Yong Kim
The water issue is critically related to climate change. People say that carbon is the currency of climate change. Water is the teeth.
World Bank is a bank that's focused on economic development and poverty alleviation.
If I care about poverty, I have to care a lot about investments in the private sector. The private sector creates the vast majority of jobs in the world, and social protection only goes so far.
If you look at three diseases, the three major killers, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, the only disease for which we have really good drugs is HIV. And it's very simple: because there's a market in the United States and Europe.
Look at the problem of drug-resistant TB in the world. Look at HIV in the world. What's going to be required for everybody in the long run is the ability to do complex health interventions in poor settings.
We will never end poverty if we don't tackle climate change.
The relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala fundamentally changes with meditation.
I think one of the main challenges that the World Bank faces is creating an organizational structure that doesn't get in the way of its staff. We have fantastic staff. People told me as I was coming into the organization that the greatest asset of the World Bank Group is its staff, and I think there's no question that that's the case.
One of the lessons of leadership worth emphasizing is that you want to get to know other great leaders and take their advice. At some point in your development, it's only people who've been in the seat of having to be leaders who can help you in a deep way.
One of the most important things about leadership is that you have to have the kind of humility that will allow you to be coached.
What we have found is that because of smartphones and access to media, and because everybody knows how everyone else lives, you have no idea where the next huge social movement is going to erupt.
Economic development and poverty alleviation are so complicated that I don't think there's a single background or a single discipline that is sufficient to tackle these great human problems.
We are watching things happen with one degree changes in ocean temperature that we thought wouldn't happen until there were two or three degree changes in ocean temperature. These are facts.
I want to eradicate poverty. I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.
In my own view, the life expectancy of Native Americans in the United States is one of the really great moral crises that we face.
I like to change people's sense of what's possible.
Many people could benefit from meditation.
Hope is a moral choice.
Social media has changed the world forever. We're not going to go backwards. People are not going to accept being poor, accept being excluded anymore.
One of the things I had to really work on is, when you're the leader of an organization, people look at the expression on your face. Your mood has a lot to do with how people think the whole organization is doing.
Institutionalized discrimination is bad for people and for societies. Widespread discrimination is also bad for economies. There is clear evidence that when societies enact laws that prevent productive people from fully participating in the workforce, economies suffer.
Water and sanitation has not had the same kind of champion that global health, and even education, have had.
I've spent my entire life working to invest in human beings and human communities, to help them move down the path of economic development.
I've always been engaged in social protection programmes.
My father came by himself across the North Korean border when he was seventeen. And hasn't seen his brothers or sisters or parents since then. And he died some time ago, but never saw any of his relatives. My mother was a refugee in war-torn Korea.
A lot of young people don't think they can make a difference. That's really what I am at Dartmouth to do. I'm there to tell the young people, 'Look, a few committed souls can change the world.'
Haiti's economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few. It must be built by and benefit all Haitians.
I feel like I'm calmer, I'm kinder, I'm more patient the more I do my own meditation.
What I learned from my work as a physician is that even with the most complicated patients, the most complicated problems, you've got to look hard to find every piece of data and evidence that you can to improve your decision-making. Medicine has taught me to be very much evidence-based and data-driven in making decisions.
Growing economies are critical; we will never be able to end poverty unless economies are growing. We also need to find ways of growing economies so that the growth creates good jobs, especially for young people, especially for women, especially for the poorest who have been excluded from the economic system.
No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better - because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.
