Quotes from Sri Mulyani Indrawati

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

Although many people in Aceh are still poor and vulnerable, the province resembles nothing like the place I saw the day after the tsunami hit.

Until we know how many women own businesses, we may under-invest in them as entrepreneurs and economic drivers.

I am still an Indonesian citizen.

Urbanization has relied on land conversion and land financing, which is causing urban sprawl and, on occasion, ghost towns and waste.

If women had better access to the financial system - even so much as a basic deposit account at a bank - it would be a major step in the direction of greater wealth and greater economic empowerment.

While prosperity and longevity arrive together, they cannot be treated the same. With greater wealth, people in Asia may not have to work as many hours as they do now. But living longer means they will have to work more years, not fewer.

Many emerging countries are facing the same issue of overheating and inflation because they have been vigorously expanding fiscal and monetary policy to counter the 2008 shock.

Between 1995 and 2009, Western Europe's entrepreneurs created jobs faster than the U.S. did, and European economies exported more than the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Eastern Europe's productivity increased more rapidly than East Asia's.

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

People now, especially with the Internet, are connected. They have an expectation of behaviour, of accountability, avoiding conflict and fair and just competition.

So much research has been done showing that the woman is the most vulnerable but also the biggest strength leading to economic progress.

It is rarely the quick fix that goes the farthest. So don't get tempted by political cycles and the lure of electoral wins.

Financial inclusion matters not only because it promotes growth, but because it helps ensure prosperity is widely shared. Access to financial services plays a critical role in lifting people out of poverty, in empowering women, and in helping governments deliver services to their people.

When both women and men contribute to a country's economic life on an equal basis, they help building stronger societies and stronger economies.

Sometimes our definitions fall short. Take, for example, the way we view income and labor. It simply doesn't cover enough of the work that women, and in particular poor women, are doing - especially in their own households and the vast 'informal' economy in which most of the world's poorest people work.

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.

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

Everyone with all those good intentions came to help Indonesia rebuild from the tsunami; but the co-ordination problem was very big, because they came with their own way of doing business; they came with the inflexibility of their own governance.

There's broad recognition that you really have to put the money where people are going to self-manage.

When we rebuild a house, we are rebuilding a home. When we recover from disaster, we are rebuilding lives and livelihoods.

When millions of dollars and thousands of humanitarian workers poured into Indonesia, we quickly faced the challenge of coordinating our own bureaucracy with the multitudes of approaches and priorities the donor community wanted to pursue.

At the World Bank, we are already working with our clients in developing countries to improve their governance systems, collect taxes, fight corruption, and recover stolen assets.

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.