Sri Mulyani Indrawati

We won't be able to stop disasters from happening. On the contrary, climate change may increase the frequency and severity of floods, droughts and storms. But we are better equipped today to prepare for them and reduce their impact.

Infrastructure alone won't end poverty. The World Bank had to learn this lesson, too. While we believed too much in bricks and mortar in our early days, we now understand that bringing together funding, technical expertise, and tested knowledge goes much further.

Women are emerging as a major force for change. Countries that have invested in girls' education and removed legal barriers that prevent women from achieving their potential are now seeing the benefits.

Over time, Europeans have come to rely on governments to protect them from the rougher facets of private enterprise and to look after them in old age.

Revolutions and their aftermaths, of course, are always fluid and fickle times, and the outcome is often perched on a knife's edge.

Development is an endurance exercise with incremental improvements.

Many developing countries are enjoying demographic changes. They have a younger demographic composition so they're not burdened by legacy policy. Now, if you combine this with a good macro policy and ambitious structural policy, those countries are able to move more flexibly and be more agile.

I always enjoy the job and the work that I do, because that's the condition that I attach in accepting any job. This way, I can really work and dedicate myself to the institution for achieving the goal which I believe is a noble one.

If women had equal access to fertilizer and modern farm machinery, developing countries would produce between 2.5-percent and 4-percent more food.

I remember my first meeting with my management team when I became Indonesia's Minister of Finance. I was the youngest person and the first woman ever to hold that job. Everybody else in the room was male. I knew then that I had to work harder than any man to prove to them that I was capable.

In many countries, laws still work to women's disadvantage - for example, by requiring married women to obtain their husbands' permission to register a business, own property, or work.

Women are often paid far less than men, while they also perform most of the world's unpaid care work.