We have also prepared a Participation Handbook for our staff on how to handle these aspects of the new paradigm. However, given that the Bank s role is not to substitute for government, but to work with government, the most important thing that the Bank can do is to help local government agencies, those who are on the front lines and thus most responsive to the public, become more adept at strengthening their ties with the various stakeholders. Empowerment is simply giving assets to those who have none, which means land. Empowerment also is to increase the returns to assets held by the poor, by credit as well as education, training, and health care. These, in turn, did better than traditional projects with no participation.
Empowerment of women is thus an achievable and effective goal in itself.
These five actions are feasible and should result in a significantly improved donor-beneficiary relationship, and furthermore one that would promote the centrality of local governments in dealing with the problems of urban growth, poverty, and the environment. It should help create that space of freedom where the entrepreneurial spirit can flourish. This is my vision of the new development paradigm that should carry us into the next millennium. A vision that is people-centered and gender conscious, that seeks equity for all and empowerment of the weak and the vulnerable everywhere that they may be the producers of their own welfare and bounty, not the recipients of charity or beneficiaries of aid. A vision that has no room for complacency in the face of the misery of millions of kindred souls who suffer in the grip of extreme poverty and hunger in a world that has the means and the ability to help them lift themselves out of conditions that are beneath any definition of human decency.