It's a pleasure to be with you and to share some ideas, possibly some insights. I think the biggest risk we face is losing our nerve. The next biggest risk we face is not listening to the messages we get in from the streets. But I can face that I'm an optimist, that we live in a world of our own making, thus, we can make it different. And I am puzzled by the lack of confidence of leaders in politics, in business, in the weight of society. I was slightly depressed this morning after hearing various speakers. There is no reason for anyone in the world to be hungry or poor or without shelter. These are conditions we inflict on each other.

I guess why Jeff was so angry is that he knows we have the levers, we can pull them, we just refuse to do so. We know from bitter experience what works and what does not. Perhaps we've forgotten what's right and what's wrong, and that we do live in an interdependent world which is not yet fully integrated. Science, commerce, culture, is advancing faster than our political capacity, our ethical or legal capacity to cope. Yet we know that no nation, mighty or modest, can prosper, be free from terrorism, enjoy clean air, manage a tax system or even run an airline, without the cooperation of others.

It seems to be a world of insurmountable opportunities. Yet there is, in this debate, in my view, a sort of moral mob rule and propaganda that seems upside down. What are the charges levelled against our modern age? That globalization has meant the end of democracy. Yet, within 20 years, we've seen most of central and eastern Europe break free from bondage, and 30 years ago, Spain and Portugal were under fascist control. Twenty years ago, all of Spanish-speaking America was under some sort of military jackboot. Now only Cuba alone is a one-party state. In my region in Asia, peoples' power has produced more democratic regimes from South Korea to the Philippines to Indonesia. In China, people have never been more free, and those freedoms are growing. Who would have thought that ministers and mayors would have to resign because they were not listening to the people and not responding during the SARS scare?

Read what happened in the streets of Hong Kong. Half a million people went to the streets and said, "We're concerned about this proposed addition law. The government backed down.

So globalization has not meant the end of democracy, nor has it meant, as some have suggested, the end of the nation's state. Hell, they're inventing countries quicker than I can visit them. Three-quarters of the countries' currencies, flags and national anthems at the United Nations did not exist 50 years ago.

So the monopoly that existed in much of the world of political power has shrunk, even disappeared, over the last 20 years, and a better age of political competition and openness is upon us. Democracy is more than just having elections. Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, the list goes on, as people have a greater say over their lives.

Then there's the argument that globalization is a plot by big business. Yet, read the Fortune 500 now. Ten years ago and 20 years ago, the list has changed. If it's a plot by big business, it's a spectacular failure. The world was littered with chief executives and businesses that have gone belly-up. Great companies have disappeared or configured to survive. So much for the capitalist plot.

Then there's the charge that all of this is the Americanization of global commerce. If you have a look at the U.S.'s share of world trade, it's been remarkably stable. Actually it's taken a dive, if you back the truck up 50 years. When I was director general of the WTO, everywhere I went in the world, I was told the WTO was an American plot, except when I went to America.

Then there's the charge that all this is about the great corporations avoiding tax. True, yet the OECD shows that company tax revenues to governments has actually increased very slightly in the last decade.

Then there's your motive charge that may sell books, that the world is driven by logos. Now, I'm not disappointed -- well, I am, but I'm not bitter, that these books outsell my books. Now, what's a logo but a brand? What is a brand but a reputation? All that represents is the goodwill and trust stored up over years of success.

I think the opposite will happen to what some activists plan. A reputation is vulnerable. It's hard to win. It's easy to lose. Corporates live in a world of free information, investigative journalists, NGOs, opportunist politicians on the prowl for a headline. They now need to conduct themselves in a more ethical and transparent manner. I think that is splendid. I think the case presented earlier about how vulnerable business is, is a good thing, because what we're going to see is that virtue will be rewarded. Isn't that a good thing? And companies will have to explain themselves. I see no danger in that. But we need to get a little real from time to time.
Nike has been attacked for ripping off workers in Vietnam. Well, they're paying five times the average wage in Vietnam, and they're causing enormous problems, because professors are leaving universities, doctors are leaving hospitals to go on the factory floor in Vietnam to get a higher income. That tells you something about the socialized education and health systems of Vietnam.

And the ILO has done research in developing countries and found that it is the multi-nationals who are paying higher wages, are more likely to recognize trade unions, have a better environmental record than local businesses. And why? It's because they're vulnerable, they must respond to public and shareholder opinion. I think that's healthy and splendid.

The world is interdependent. Some guy coughs in Hong Kong, that closes down Toronto. Some overweight computer nerd flicks a virus out and closes me down in Geneva. Businesses cannot exist in a vacuum. They are vulnerable. They will respond or they'll be punished.

I think we're a bit like Victorian England, where the rich guys have their flashing huge mansions -- and this was great, I enjoyed it, but it's no good being the richest guy in Manchester with the biggest house if the cleaner and the cook came in and brought influenza or disease to you. So, therefore, they invented municipal socialism, public goods, clean water, public sewage. We have to do this on a global basis, and this is what gives me great hope.

If you're digging up gold in Africa, you've got to put into the cost of that gold per ounce over 10 English pounds because of AIDS. If you're employing someone in Zimbabwe, you've got to employ three people, because two will die. So now companies are waking up to it, and they're putting together health programs for their workers. And they know that if they don't do this sort of thing, some governments will tax and steal from them, and do it badly. Their virtue will be rewarded.

It's an interesting thing. I never thought I'd say this. But I'm in Africa, and there's gunfire, and there's young males with machetes walking down the road. And I don't think I'll go out that night. Nothing works, except I can get a tall glass of Coca Cola.

So why can't we put together public private partnerships where Coca Cola run the condom machines, where the corporates who know how things can work can go into partnerships, as Jeffrey was talking, through the global compact, to assist in poverty, alleviation and in training.

And I am inspired by some of the public private partnerships that are out there. I read one the other day of OPEC, AOC's private investment corporation in the States. Here's the deal. That picked up the mortgages of 250,000 people in South Africa. You've got to have AIDS to have the mortgage cover, but if you accept the mortgage cover, you must take the treatment. And here's the next part of the deal. The treatment is put together free from the Gates Foundation. I think that is one of the ways of the future, that if corporations who value their reputation and who are thinking of customers of the future can play a dynamic role in poly alleviation and providing solutions to many of the problems out there. It will be and is good business to be a good citizen. We've heard of how investment funds are more and more going to insist on ethical behaviour. This blowtorch of transparency is a cleansing agent for the business world, and smart people are going to respond to it.

So why do we get improvements in society and politics? It is because people in free societies demand better outcomes. Thirty years ago, no country had a minister of the environment. Now every country has. Twenty years ago, very few political parties had manifestos on gay rights or gender rights. Now every political party has to make a case. That's responding to the political market, and I think that's a good thing. And the political market will correct itself, given freedom and the opportunity. So open societies and globalization dries up choice, competition and transparency, and there will be a real cost for those who stand in the way. And if people worry about corporate power, I say they should pray for globalization. Freeing trade curbs domestic giants by exposing them to competition. Closed domestic markets where national champions cozy up to governments are more likely to be monopolies than global ones. Even though many global companies are bigger and getting bigger, it does not necessarily give them more clout. It's the absence of competition, not size, that gives companies power. Open trade forces competition, it curves monopolies. Open markets means that cozy crony capitalists with businesses purchasing privilege fro politicians against the interests of workers and consumers, doesn't work. It is the absence of competition, not the size of the business, that gives them that power.

The tragedy of human experience is we know what works and we know what does not work. What we need to establish is those external pegs that economic openness and political integration means when you drive up common standards. Pegs and principles driven into the ground. For example, if you want to join the WTO, these are the standards, these are the roles and rights and obligations you must live up to, whether you're China, Croatia, Cambodia or Australia. And if you want to join the EU, these are the core human and social rights you must live up to.

We do have a long way to go. It's appalling that our great global institutions do not function as they should. Yet, let's be of good cheer. The job's half done. The nation's state and all its imperfections is only 400 years old. We've only been trying to build an international architecture for about 80 years. Of course we haven't got it right. And for me, as an internationalist, because I think the true patriot is an internationalist, I am haunted by the words of dying President Wilson when he spoke to the Senate and tried to get them to accept the League of Nations, when he said, "Reject this treaty and you will break the heart of the world." We all know what happened next.

So I wish I could find he, I suspect, she, the person who invented the word "globalization", or "globalist". In the absent of other ism's, it's the ism we can all hate. Globalism is seen as some gigantic invisible hand gobbling up the world. Internationalist, universal rights, universal standards, seem principled and okay.

And the irony is this, that when you spend time in the poorest countries, it's not globalization they fear, it's marginalization. And all the testing shows that the poorer most marginalized countries are those that want globalization. And the richer, smugger and wider the society, the less they want globalization.

Is globalization new? Of course not. In fact, there are those that argue there is less trade now as a percentage of G & P than there was a hundred years ago. There's certainly a smaller movement of people than there was a hundred years ago. And in the main, I think it's been a good thing, and occasionally we should celebrate the great advances of the last 50 years. There has never been a period in the history of our species where we've seen freedoms and living standards rise so consistently for most people. Those countries that have done best are those that have adopted pillars of good behaviour, good clean governance, accountable leaders, property and civil rights, a free media, an active civil society, and religious tolerance. And we have evidence in country after country that it works.

In the last 50 years, life expectancy is increased by 20 years. Infant mortality rates have dropped by two-thirds. Thirty years ago, Ghana's income equalled South Korea. Now, South Korea's income equals Portugal's. And look how Portugal's income has lifted since she joined the European Union. South Korea's GDP per capita did not reach $100 until 1963. Since then, life expectancy has risen from 54 years to 73 years. Infant mortality has dropped from 8 percent to .8 percent. Malaysia and Haiti were equal in 1960. I read the obituary of this business guy from Chinese Taipei, and he boasted in his last report how proud he was that when he set his business up 45 years ago, he was paying his workers $7.50 a month. Forty or fifty years later, he was paying his workers $7.50 an hour. After the second war, Burma and Thailand had equal incomes. Thailand is now 25 times richer than Burma.

None of this would have happened without business leading in the search for products, ideas, markets, solutions and profits, backed by good governance, good public servants, honest and accountable politicians, proper property rights, and that has been the story of history.

Knowing this history, we need business out there with more confidence, asserting yourself, telling the politicians we want action. For example, in a couple of days time, trade ministers assemble in Cancun. This Doha development round has the opportunity, gives us the opportunity of creating the greatest redistribution of wealth we have seen in this planet's history.

If we could just do the deal on agriculture, that would return to Africa four to five times more than all the ODA put together. That would return to Africa 10 times more than all the debt relief granted so far.

And you come from rich countries, and you're spending a billion dollars a day on agricultural subsidies, to make food dearer and allow a choice for your working families. Kofi Annan wants $12 billion to fight AIDS. That's only 12 days of subsidies from the rich people.

And if you wonder why kids are in the street, perhaps from time to time, they're right. I could talk to you about the tragedy of some of the commodities. Sugar, cotton. If the U.S. could just do something about its cotton subsidies, that would return $250 million a year to West Africa. And look at sugar, what a disgrace. Europeans and Americans are paying more than 50 percent more than they should for their sugar, starving the poor countries, the Caribbean, and Africa, of those jobs, and self-righteously giving lectures about free enterprise and free markets.

The story of coffee is equally tragic. Ten years ago, the coffee industry was worth about $30 billion, and farmers got about $10 billion. Now the industry is worth about $60 billion, and farmers get about 5.5 billion. Coffee prices are at their lowest in a hundred years. Why? Because some worthy good person in Europe and Washington felt sorry for Vietnam and thought they could grow coffee. And they could. Now they're the world's second biggest producers. And get this, no wonder the kids are in the street. Sixty percent of Ethiopia's exports are coffee. I think it's about 50 percent for Kenya. I'm grinding my coffee, but if I dare process it, if I dare add value, if I dare add an idea to that coffee bean, roast it, try to market it, the Europeans and the Americans have a thing called tariff escalation, and will escalate the tariffs till they put you out of business. How bad is that?

The Doha round can fix that, and inside that round are other issues of extreme importance to you and your shareholders. On the agenda there are a number of good governance issues such as transparency in government procurement, investment, competition policy, issues like trade facilitation. Sound boring? Doesn't look good on a placard. But how is it, it costs me four times more to get a container from North Africa to New York than from Hong Kong, through the Panama, than to New York.

All these things are about attacking poverty, and the market, given the chance, can work. And perhaps from time to time we’re to draw a breath and revisit the ideas of the founders of modern economics, and the enlightenment upon which our civilization is based. Immanuel Kant, more than 200 years ago, wrote in his essay Perpetual Peace, that durable peace could be built upon the tripod of representative democracy, international organizations, and economic dependence. It was he who first coined the phrase "a League of Nations". And Adam Smith, in 1776, wrote, "Commerce and manufacturing can seldom flourish in any state in which there's not a certain degree of confidence in the justice of government." Money is a coward. Investments, thus jobs, will go, where you can get the best and most secure results. Guess why huge Arab investment funds buy property in London and New York, not Syria or the Gaza Strip.

This idea was revisited recently by a group of economists from the IMF, the issue of institutional quality, and they suggested this. Here's Cameroon, average income $600 U.S. dollars. If it could lift its institutional quality, that is, its courts, its police, its tax systems, its property rights, to the international average, their income would go from 600 to $2,760. Institutions, property rights, and transparency of everything.

If Bangladesh could lift the quality of its institutions to the giddy level of Uruguay, that would give them a .5 lift in their GDP.

The old songs and the old hymns about freedom and openness are not wrong. I was reading a report of a group of London School of Economic kids who did a survey in India of the state governments. Which state government had the biggest outcomes and have faced a drought, a flood or rail crash? And there's a direct relationship to readership of the local newspapers. And you think about it, that makes sense. An educated informed public are not going to tolerate corrupt politicians and corrupt bureaucrats.

So I make the case again, open society, globalization, forces up choice, competition and transparency. There is a real cost to those who stand in the way.

From my point of view, I think we're extremely lucky to live in the age we live in. All of us in this room are blessed to be in this place in history. In our lives we have seen this happen. In your memory, there are certain photographs and historic moments no one can take from you. You have that photograph in your mind of the Berlin Wall coming down. You have a picture in your mind of Nelson Mandela free at last. You're curious because you want to know what happened to that brave young man who stood in front of the tank at Tianneman Square. You have seen the smiles on the faces of those girls who first went to school in Afghanistan. You have, in your life, seen power peacefully transferred from Mexico, Russia, Indonesia. You've seen the enlargement of NATO from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

There is much to do. It's good that people protest. It's fantastic that people rally and show solidarity, and that kids from Seattle to Hong Kong want something better. It's for us to offer them something better.

Can I finally share with you one of the magic moments of my life. I had to go to Cambodia to help navigate them into the WTA. The only people who seem to support the WTA were those who weren't in it. That's about as hard as it gets. Pol Pot kills two million of his people. There are 67 intellectuals left alive. Phnom Penh has had a population of half a million to a million for a hundred years. Poll Pot got it down to 30 people alive. Where were we?

But as we flew in, you didn't realize you're flying in at night to a great city. There are only a couple hundred lights on. And as we drove into town, what were those lights? They were cyber cafes, with kids cueing up around the block to have their chance of the life we take for granted. And how inspiring is that? And I just think if we give these kids the freedom and the opportunities, they will astound us. It is for our generation now to rebuild confidence now into national institutions, to rebuild confidence in democracy and the ballot box. And to do that, we have to get some success up, and the levers are out there. As Senator Bill Bradley and Jeff and others were saying, and perhaps they weren't quite saying it, we have the levers. If we don't use them, we'll deserve the future we face. Thank you.