Search
3 interviews · 5 quotes
Conversations
In these exclusive interviews we speak to Prof. Jacques Attali (Former adviser to President François Mitterrand, first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and ranked as one of the…
In this exclusive series of interviews, we speak to seven experts on conflict and peace building. Four Nobel Peace Prize Winners; Prof. Jody Williams (Chair, Nobel Women's Initiative), Dr. Shirin Ebadi (Human Rights…
How we can fix our broken nations, economies, societies and cultures. In these exclusive interviews we speak to Professor Theodore Zeldin (International Best-Selling Author and Scholar), Rutger Bregman (Author, ‘Utopia for Realists’),…
From the archive
The key for the development of the poor is to include them in the democratic process as well as in the market economy. Therefore, inclusion is the key for getting rid of poverty. Political inclusion… social inclusion… environmental inclusion… education and knowledge inclusion… network inclusion… all these types of inclusion which are taken for granted by people who are inside the growth process.
— Jacques AttaliFrench Economist, Advisor to Mitterrand & Founder of EBRD
Inequality is strong because wealth goes to wealth. The economic and political organisations of the world are such that the negotiation power of the poor is minimal if not zero. There are no trade-unions, no capacity to negotiate… even in the US, Europe and elsewhere… the level of concentration of wealth is bigger than ever.
— Jacques AttaliFrench Economist, Advisor to Mitterrand & Founder of EBRD
When you consider that wealth transfer internally in western countries is around 15-25% of GDP… and that is not enough to solve the problem of poverty in the west… then you compare that to a transfer of less than 0.5% between North and South… that is just nothing compared to the needs.
— Jacques AttaliFrench Economist, Advisor to Mitterrand & Founder of EBRD
The only serious mechanisms which have made progress in this sense are growth, microfinance and democracy. Economic growth will naturally have some spill-over to the poor, democracy helps transparency together with political consciousness and microfinance helps the very poor to develop their own business and allows them to control their own lives without expecting the help of anyone.
— Jacques AttaliFrench Economist, Advisor to Mitterrand & Founder of EBRD
Poverty is a result of history first of all. Mankind was always 'poor' according to our development standards. Growth has been very high in the last two centuries, but only in the west for a while, and now
— Jacques AttaliFrench Economist, Advisor to Mitterrand & Founder of EBRD
More conversations
