Spider strategem
Lingua franca
Taking over from treasuries
Latins sweep awards
E-lack-of-commerce
Woeful ranking
Loitering near the Nigerian delegation at this year's World Bank/IMF meeting, Euromoney is surprised to bump into Don King. The larger-than-life boxing promoter seems a little out of place among all the serious bankers and officials. King is surprised that Euromoney is surprised. "There's nothing unusual about seeing me with black people," he bristles.
King then expounds on his 30-year consuming interest in issues of globalization and sustainable development, while airily claiming to have many friends at the World Bank. But could he have any personal interest at stake, Euromoney wonders? Is he perhaps trying to promote a major boxing match in Nigeria? "Oh absolutely," smiles King, before returning to his real passion of alleviating poverty.
"What we want to do is deal with the economic growth and development of the nation, so that it is prepared to deal with the influx of people that would come to the nation and be able to deal with healthcare, deal with transportation, deal with energy and being able to get schools and education and teachers to teach in schools and to create jobs and get jobs and homes for the homeless and mental care for those who are incapacitated and to take care of the aged and the new born." Wow.
King sums up: "It's about helping a country to develop itself with the technology that we now have in place, if we can disseminate it and share it with those in place they can grow by geometric progression."
Terrific, Don. Will Goodhart