I understand that you will shortly be presenting awards to people who are working at the local and national levels and in both the public and private sectors and whose efforts have improved housing conditions for the rural poor. All of you who work in these roles are doing your country a great service by helping to advance economic opportunity in our communities.
These institutions do not inherently require the same rules as international banks. On the contrary, these rules may interfere with the important role that they play in the economy. I will come back to this subject later on. For now, my point is a general one. When thinking about the future of international relations, ignoring national political constraints does us no favours.