During a three-day visit to India between November 1 and 3, the World Bank Group President, Mr Robert B. Zoellick, said: “ India has had striking success. Yet there remains much to be done to address rural and urban poverty and to encourage the development of a healthy, educated and skilled population that will enable India to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth as a leader in the world economy.”

During the course of his visit to Mumbai and Delhi, Mr Zoellick met the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, the Finance Minister, Mr. P Chidambaram, the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Kamal Nath, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and the Minister of State for Labor and Employment, Mr. Oscar Fernandes. In Mumbai, he met the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Dr. Y. V. Reddy.

Following two days of meetings with India’s top leadership, the World Bank Group President offered a more creative partnership between the Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and its concessional lending window, the International Development Association (IDA).

“Where some of the key constraints lie in getting social infrastructure into place to connect people to the opportunities in the economy, the World Bank Group should be able to leverage the capabilities of its different parts; to bring the private sector to the table where there are good investments and to deliver the poverty projects that compliment private sector development,” he said.

While in Mumbai, Mr Zoellick also visited a Bank-supported urban renewal and transport project in the city and met with a wide-ranging sample of India’s business and civil society communities.

The World Bank and the Government of India also signed loan/credit agreements for US$ 944 million for three projects that seek to support India’s efforts to revitalize the rural economy and bridge existing skill gaps with vocational training.

Part of the Bank’s contribution to India’s challenge was the global knowledge and experience it could bring from other parts of the world, Mr Zoellick said during the course of his meetings in India. But just as important was sharing India’s knowledge with developing nations in Africa, for example, where India was beginning to make its own development contribution.

The Bank was also engaged across India in development areas that were beginning to reach the scale needed to make a real impact on poverty. These included rural water supply and irrigation critical to agriculture, rural livelihood programs reaching millions of people and health, education and nutrition programs at a national level. However, implementation was a critical constraint around which the Bank could do more to support building much-needed skills, he said. “The effectiveness of social service delivery would also be sharpened by the government’s commitment to good governance and accountability and civil society’s important role as a partner in development,” Mr Zoellick added.

Citing the increasing global role and profile of countries such as China and India in critical areas such as climate change and the global trading system, Mr Zoellick said it was yet another reasonwhy the World Bank should continue its partnership with these two countries. He praised India’s recognition of the challenge of finding a path to low-carbon growth in its own self interest and said the Bank would make efforts to respond with innovations to support this.

He also encouraged India to continue to support the effort to reach a conclusion to the Doha Development Agenda in the WTO global trade negotiations. “The world is changing and the Bank also needs to change to best meet the needs of its partners,” Mr Zoellick said. “Better roads, rail links and ports that bring down the cost of goods and services; reliable electricity for farms, factories and homes; quality education and vocational training that equips Indians to take their rightful place in the global workforce; and better irrigation, credit, and agriculture technologies that will help Indian farmers reap adequate livelihoods from their lands – those are the priorities for the new India and the World Bank is privileged to support these development goals.”