JOHANNESBURG - New World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz is planning a tour of Africa soon after taking office on June 1 that will bring him to South Africa around mid-June, a World Bank spokeswoman said Wednesday.
"This trip will underscore that he believes that Africa is a priority," said Mallory Saleson from the South African office of the World Bank.
No firm date has been set for the visit to South Africa that is to include meetings with President Thabo Mbeki and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, but Saleson said it was scheduled for "mid-June".
"He is coming in mid-June. It's part of a tour of the continent," she told AFP, adding that the other destinations on the continent had yet to be confirmed.
Wolfowitz, 61, a former deputy defence secretary in the administration of President George W. Bush, was named to the top post at the World Bank in March despite misgivings over his role as one of the key architects of the US war in Iraq.
The neo-conservative has said that increasing financial aid to Africa was necessary to pull the continent out of poverty, along with more action against corruption and a greater opening of local markets.
"I can't stress enough how important it is that the first priority of the bank is Africa, and the poorest people of Africa," Wolfowitz said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Europe last month.
"Africa is an area that has been left behind by the progress that has touched other parts of the world."
"In Africa you have this combination of real degrading poverty, combined with the most appalling health conditions" created by "the epidemics of AIDS and malaria, which are problems elsewhere, but nowhere on the same scale as in Africa," he said.
05/25/2005 14:46 GMT