World Bank President Jim Yong Kim presented a bold vision for the end of global poverty in Gaston Hall Tuesday afternoon.

“We now have the opportunity to rid the world of the stain of global poverty and economic exclusion,” Kim said. “But if we are to succeed, we must make some hard decisions.”

He outlined the World Bank’s major goals for the near future, the foremost of which is to end extreme poverty by 2030. Kim argued that the goal can be attained provided growth rates in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa remain high and growth translates into job transference and overall decline of poverty. But Kim acknowledged that the timeline is extremely ambitious, and that success is by no means a guarantee.

“We must move with greater urgency,” Kim said. “We must focus on how the United Nations can work together as a multilateral system more effectively. The challenges in front of us are enormous, but progress is inevitable.”

Kim said that the policy decisions must take into consideration the state of global development, specifically regarding the current economic crisis, which he said still affects world markets despite some leaders’ assurances of economic recovery.

Kim transitioned fluidly between statistics and anecdotes to remind the audience that behind the numbers, world poverty has very real impacts on individuals’ lives.

“Let me stress the human face of this crisis,” Kim said. “We need to restart growth in order to help millions of families. Today, we learned that the overall unemployment rate in the eurozone is 12 percent. This means that people don’t have jobs and are suffering today, and many have lost hope.”

Recalling a trip to China earlier this year, Kim shared the inspiring story of a woman who dreamed of building her own business but lacked the financial means to get started. She scraped by on her husband’s income as a taxi driver until she secured a $10,000 loan from a local bank as part of a program promoting female entrepreneurship. The International Finance Corporation, a private sector branch of the World Bank, sponsored this loan, allowing her to successfully open her own car repair shop, which now employs approximately 150 individuals.

Kim cited such stories as the reason for his positive outlook. With advances in the social sectorcombatting HIV/AIDS, especially in children, Kim said there is great promise for the improvement of global conditions.  For example, in 1990, 43 percent of the international population lived on less than $1.25 per day. That statistic had fallen to 21 percent by 2010.

“We are at an auspicious moment in history when the successes of past decades and an increasingly favorable economic outlook combine to give developing countries a chance for the first time ever to end extreme poverty,” Kim said.

Kim stressed the importance of inclusive growth that includes people from across the globe, deeming action toward the betterment of human conditions a moral imperative. Kim cited the 1.3 billion people still living in extreme poverty and the 6.9 million children under the age of five that die every year.

“Fighting extreme poverty, however, is not enough,” Kim said. “We must collectively work to enable these individuals to lift themselves well above the line of poverty and boost shared prosperity.”

Kim concluded by stressing the importance of addressing these issues for the sake of the younger generation.

“A world without extreme poverty is the world we want for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren,” Kim said. “The opportunity is squarely in front of us, now we must seize the arc of history and bend it towards justice.”