We must confront the challenge of scaling-up those things that work on the ground. We must find new ways of partnering to leverage our respective strengths - and enhance our collective results. To do so, we must be bolder and more strategic. The World Bank, foundations, and others committed to development must work together toward our shared objectives of poverty reduction and sustainable development. And we must do so efficiently to ensure that the impact of our collective efforts is greater than the sum of its individual parts - the agenda we face is simply too important, too urgent, and too vast for any of us to postpone collaboration and partnership.
Partnership is indeed essential to the business of development.
And as Jim Wolfensohn laid out in Hong Kong last year, partnerships that will yield sustainable and equitable development results are founded on key guiding principles. Partnerships built on these tenets should aim to find realistic ways to work together, to bring our respective comparative advantages to bear on our shared goals. We in the World Bank are committed to working with foundations in a range of development activities, to reflect their better knowledge of the social context, stronger presence in communities, and better track record in building local capacity. The Country Assistance Strategy for Bolivia, for example, benefited from extensive participation of reflects broad-based ownership by government, private sector, civil society and local donor stakeholders. The Bulgaria Country Assistance Strategy reflects the ongoing dialog with the Soros Foundation on education.