George Rupp on the Impact of the Financial Crisis on Emerging Countries | Big Think

George Rupp on the Impact of the Financial Crisis on Emerging Countries

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The refugee expert has some ideas for reforming finance.

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George Rupp:

George Rupp has been president of the International Rescue Committee since July 2002. As the IRC’s chief executive officer, Dr. Rupp oversees the agency’s relief and rehabilitation operations in 25 countries and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States. In addition, he leads the IRC’s advocacy efforts in Washington, Geneva, Brussels and other capitals on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable people. His responsibilities regularly take him to IRC program sites in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Before joining the IRC, Dr. Rupp was president of Columbia University. During his nine-year tenure, he focused on enhancing undergraduate education, on strengthening the relationship of the campus to surrounding communities and New York City as a whole, and on increasing the university’s international orientation. At the same time, he completed both a financial restructuring of the university and a $2.84 billion fundraising campaign that achieved eight successive records in dollars raised.

Prior to his time at Columbia, Dr. Rupp served as president of Rice University, where in the course of his eight years applications for admission almost tripled, federal research support more than doubled, and the value of the Rice endowment increased by more than $500 million to $1.25 billion.

Before going to Rice, Dr. Rupp was the John Lord O’Brian Professor of Divinity and dean of the Harvard Divinity School. Under his leadership, the curriculum of the school was revised to address more directly the pluralistic character of contemporary religious life. Further developments included new programs in women’s studies and religion, Jewish-Christian relations, and religion and medicine.

Born in New Jersey of immigrant parents, Dr. Rupp has studied and conducted research for extended periods in both Europe and Asia. He was awarded an A.B. from Princeton University in 1964, a B.D. from Yale Divinity School in 1967, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1972. He is the author of numerous articles and five books, including Globalization Challenged: Commitment, Conflict, and Community.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: How has the recession impacted emerging economies?

George Rupp: Well, there’s no question the financial cataclysm worldwide also has its impact on poorest countries, those who have just begun to have a minimum level of self-subsistence, largely by exporting products, all of a sudden are caught up in an economy were exports are cut back and that’s major tragedy because they’re on the threshold of being able to support themselves and now are going to have a much more difficult time of doing that. The very poorest countries are even poorer and they are not on a point where they have major benefits from international trade, they still have to get to do that point and that makes it really imperative that the international community continue to give assistance of a sort that the IRC implements in places after conflict. Again, basic water and sanitation, basic healthcare, basic education, all in the interest of having people get to a point where they can support themselves.

Question: How can global governance help?

George Rupp:Well, I think the most important agenda for the G20’s is going to be get enough stimulus into the world economy in order to begin… to unfreeze the credit markets and get trade reestablished in the rest and that… if that happens, that will benefit, not only the developed world but will also be crucial to the developing world and I think it’s appropriate that that be the focus of attention. I’ve very pleased that both Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have also focused on the need to have increased funding for the International Monetary Fund because that will target directly those countries who simply can’t raise credit themselves, especially in this market and as you know, the talk is about raising another trillion dollars or at least 500 billion dollars preferably a trillion dollars for this kind of further lending which will be critical in helping to jump start the economies for the poorer parts of the world. So I would say fixing the overall…

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