BY SEAN HEALY
The socialist island nation of Cuba received praise from an unlikely source on May Day — from James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, one of the chief enforcers of corporate globalisation.
Wolfensohn told a news conference that Cuba, which is not a member of the Washington DC-based institution and has determinedly implemented the opposite of the World Bank's pro-business policy prescriptions, scored better on social measures than most of the World Bank's members.
Statistics in the bank's World Development Indicators report, released on May 1, show Cubans live longer than other Latin Americans, including residents of the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Infant mortality in Cuba is seven deaths per thousand live births, much lower than the rest of Latin America, again including Puerto Rico.
In Latin America, the island's literacy levels are equalled only by the middle-income nations of Argentina and Uruguay. Only 3% of Cuban males aged more than 15 cannot read, a literacy rate that is five times better than Brazil and 16 times ahead of Haiti.
"Cuba has done a great job on education and health and, if you judge the country by education and health, they've done a terrific job", Wolfensohn, told a news conference.
"It was not with our advice but it was not without our advice either. We just have nothing to do with them", added Wolfensohn, who denied being embarrassed about the revelations of his own institution's leading social indicators report.